Faster Unto Thee

Wesleyans and Inerrancy

For the last few years I have heard repeatedly that Wesleyans are not inerrantists in their understanding of biblical inspiration.  Inerrancy, which is defined in many different ways, typically boils down to the belief that the original manuscripts of each Bible book were without error (One of the best and most thorough statements on inerrancy is the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy).  A quick perusal of articles in the Wesleyan Theological Journal reveals at least ten articles that address the issue.  I have not read them all yet, but so far I have found none that conclude that Wesleyans should affirm inerrancy.  Of the contemporary systematic theology texts on my shelf from a Wesleyan perspective, neither Wiley, Dunning, or Grider feel comfortable with the term. 

So I was very happy the other day to come across a paper by Dr. Daryl McCarthy that was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in November of 2001, in Colorado Springs.  In the paper, found on Reclaiming the Mind, McCarthy explains his shock some years ago to hear that Wesleyans do not affirm biblical inerrancy and that, among other issues, was why it is not proper to refer to Wesleyans as evangelicals.  McCarthy goes on in his paper to demonstrate that John Wesley, Adam Clarke, and Richard Watson all affirmed inerrancy.  To be sure, if John Wesley affirmed some theological point, that point must be Wesleyan by definition.

Discovering that article reminded me of something else I read in seminary, written by one of my professors at Asbury Theological Seminary, that aruged John Wesley was an inerrantist.  Dr. Allan Coppedge has argued in "How Wesleyans Do Theology" (in Doing Theology in Today's World, Zondervan, 1991) that,

Wesley's conviction about the final authority of Scripture rested on his presupposition that the whole of Scripture was given by the inspiration of God and is therefore entirely accurate.  For Wesley the concept of of inspiration extended not only to the general content of revelation but also to the precise wording of the text ... 'All Scripture is given by inspiration of God,' avowed Wesley, 'consequently, all scripture is infallibly true' ... It is clear by the use of that term infallible Wesley meant that the Bible was inerrant (page 271).

My concern with this issue, aside from the fact that I have come to believe in inerrancy, is the renewed push by some evangelicals not to allow Wesleyans a seat at the evangelical table (See my recent post about Roger Olson's book, Arminian Theology).  The fact that  many Wesleyan scholars will not  affirm that the Bible is inerrant only widens the divide and further confirms to non-Wesleyan evangelicals that we Wesleyans are either liberal or inevitably headed toward liberalism because of perceived weak stance on the Bible.  Also, by not affirming inerrancy, Wesleyan scholars are not able to participate in the Evangelical Theological Society, which operates from a doctrinal basis of biblical inerrancy. 

The problem is, non-Wesleyan evangelicals need to be influenced by our optimistic view of grace, and we Wesleyans need the influence of theological precision found among Reformed folks, and more.

I feel a future research paper brewing. 

What do you think?  Do you think it is important for Wesleyans to affirm inerrancy?  What have you heard from Wesleyan scholars about this issue?

Rerun: 7 Reasons to Go to Church Even While on Vacation

The post below is from last May, but with a few changes.  It seems so fitting for this time of year as people play their summer vacations. 

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My family and I are on vacation this week with extended family. We are having a wonderful time on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The scenery is breathtaking, the weather is perfect, and we are all having a wonderful time relaxing together.

My family and I always plan ahead to attend a worship service every Lord’s Day that we are on vacation, whether we are staying at home for vacation, visiting family, or on a “real” vacation like we are now. This practice is not driven by some legalistic notion that I simply ought to be in church on Sunday, but by a real desire to be in the Lord’s presence amidst his people in worship.

Here are my top seven reasons to attend a worship service on the Lord’s Day even when on vacation.

1. To honor God.   This reason stands head and shoulders above the rest and is sufficient in and of itself to compel one to go to church while on vacation. God is worthy of worship at all times and in all places and he commands that we believers gather for public worship, not neglecting the assembling of ourselves. In our day, too many believers hold God in such low esteem that they carry no healthy, biblical “fear of the Lord” in their hearts. And so when they are on vacation, they take a vacation from God as well, as though suddenly their lives during vacation may now be lived without reference to God. May God give us a more Puritan view of the Lord God Almighty who simply must be worshiped without interruption. I have often said to my congregation, “do not take a vacation from God when you are on vacation. And be glad that he never takes two weeks off from you.” Is God such a burden to us that we need a break from him?

2. To keep life ordered around God. The second reason is an issue of discipline. As the hymn writer says, “prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” The discipline of regular attendance at worship services on the Lord’s Day except for times of sickness or true emergency is a powerful tool in keeping one’s life centered around God. We need a day of the week to plan our busy lives around; we need a fixed day to submit our schedules to lest we begin to center our lives around ourselves. Making the commitment to be in church while on vacation forces the vacationer to plan ahead by looking for a church to attend, organizing the travel schedule around worship, and maybe even shortening time at the beach. In other words, it keeps vacation time from being all about self-indulgence and emotional escape while reminding us that God is always to be the center of our lives.

3. To teach my child. One way children learn the value of something is from a routine established by parents, for we make regular what is important to us. If I say I love God and they should too, but act like God is someone to be vacationed from, I teach them the opposite. My little three year old already is watching what I say and do and keeping a mental journal of how daddy’s actions reveal what is really important to him. She needs to see me leading my family to worship even when it is inconvenient and not do so begrudgingly but with joy and love for a wonderful God. She needs to see me lead her to live against the grain of our self-indulgent culture and against the low standards of many believers. She needs my example to teach her, to haunt her when she is on her own and to prove to her that devotion to God is something that can and must be lived out in practical, routine ways. She needs me to show her that love for God is meaninglessly hollow without practical expression.

Parents, every choice we make tells our children what we think of God.  And every choice we make tells us our children what they should think of God.

4. To witness. It amazes me how people stand up and take notice that we go to church when on vacation. People see you leave the hotel or other accommodations and head out church. They see you go to bed at a decent hour on Saturday night so you can be up on time for worship. They note when you ask where to find a church. And the people you might be staying with are impacted by the fact that even if they don’t go, you do.

5. To experience the joy of meeting other Christians. There is great joy in meeting other Christians in some place other than your home church, in experiencing what God is doing in some area of the world other than your own, in hearing of common struggles, victories and hopes. In world that seems too dark at times, one hour or so spent in someone else’s church reminds me that God’s light is everywhere his people are.

6. To experience a timely word. While I certainly have heard a few dud sermons while on vacation, I have more often heard a timely word from the Lord in a sermon or through some other element of a worship service. It amazes me how readily God speaks to me if I just pay attention! What insights and instruction and direction and affirmation and rebukes I would have missed if I had skipped church while on vacation! What believer does not want to hear from God?

7. To give in to holy desire. Pastor John Piper is famous among believers for writing about  "Christian hedonism."  He makes the point that true, deep happiness is found only in full surrender and service to God. When we are fully enraptured with God happiness is the natural result. As I said at the beginning of this post, I go to church while on vacation because I really want to. My heart wants it. And I figure that giving into a holy desire is rarely a bad thing.

 What do you think? What would you add to this list? Do you wish to take me to task for anything said here? Submit a comment and let’s talk.

Not As Those Without Hope

We biblical preachers are constantly proclaiming that doctrine has practical implications for life.  On Wednesday, I found out personally that what I had preached the Sunday before really worked.

Just this Easter Sunday I was explaining to my congregation the meaning of  Jesus being the "firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:20).  I explained that the resurrection of Jesus was an indicator, a promise, that God did indeed do resurrections and that more were to come.  Just as the very first produce a farmer sees is a promise that the full harvest is right around the corner, so Jesus' resurrection is a promise that all will be raised one day, some to the "resurrection of life" and some to the "resurrection of judgment" (John 5:29).  This means that death as we know it is temporary.  It is still a painful, grief-filled experience for believers, but we do not grieve as those without hope, for there is only a relatively short wait before the resurrection comes.

I then illustrated the point by referring to a beloved saint in our church who died this year.  We had prayed for her healing and yet cancer took her from us.  "But I say to you that her healing is coming," I preached to the congregation.  To further illustrate the point, I explained that I have two grandparents and one beloved great aunt left.  "At their funerals," I said, "when I am sitting in the church pew, I know that I will feel grief, for death is a terrible thing.  But I will also feel joy, because all three are believers in Christ, and that means that they are not lost to me.  For one day, when the trumpet sounds, the dead in Christ will arise first ...." 

After our morning Easter services I came home and saw that there was a message on my answering machine.  It was my mother, letting me know that grandpa had died that morning.  "I just referred to him in my sermon," I thought.  Would what I just preached less than a couple hours ago hold up?

The funeral was Wednesday.  And as I sat and listened to the preacher, viewed the body of grandpa and felt the grief, I did experience what I just proclaimed to my congregation 3 days before: joy.  I knew that death had lost its sting, for death had been defeated with the resurrection of Christ, and that the coming resurrection meant the separation between my grandfather and I was only temporary.  I did not grieve as someone without hope.  By God's grace, the sermon I preached a few days earlier was being proved true in my own experience. 

Praise God that his truth does indeed make all the difference in the world.

Book Review - Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities

One of the most helpful books I have read in some time is Roger Olson's book, Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities, which was published in 2006.  Olson is a professor at Truett Theological Seminary, which is part of Baylor University in Texas.  This book is timely, especially in light of the resurgence of Reformed theology.

A lifelong Arminian, Olson's goal in this accessible book is to dispel some of the myths regarding classical Arminian theology, particularly that it is semi-pelagian, man-centered, not theologically orthodox, and more.  Arranged in 10 chapters, each of which dispel a particular myth about Arminian theology, Olson accomplishes his goals with careful argumentation, citing of primary sources, and a plodding explanation of where Calvinism does and does not conflict with Arminianism.  Particularly helpful are the citations of Calvinist scholars who misunderstand and misrepresent classical Arminian theology, often confusing classical Arminianism with much of today's distorted (and truly semi-pelagian) Arminianism.  For a helpful review of each chapter, see John Drury's blog.

This book is helpful for those of us in the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition, for Olson frequently cites the works of John Wesley, showing him to be firmly in the classical Arminian camp, not the semi-pelagian one.  Also helpful are the references to great 19th century Wesleyan theologians and current ones such as Thomas Oden.  Through these references, Olson demonstrates that classical Arminian theology is alive and well in some academic circles if not in our churches.

One of the most helpful chapters is number four, entitled, "The Heart of Arminianism is Belief in Free Will."  How many times have I heard in a discussion about Calvinism and Arminianism that Arminianism is primarily concerned with protecting the freedom of man? This myth is dispelled as Olson painstakingly demonstrates through primary sources that the biggest concern of Arminian theology is not preserving free will, but of protecting the character of God from the logical conclusion of Calvinistic predestination.  As Olson puts in on page 99, "Rather, the real reason Arminians reject divine control of every human choice and action is that this would make God the author of sin and evil.  For Arminians this makes God at least morally ambiguous and at worst the only sinnner."  And later on the same page, "Arminianism begins with God's goodness and ends by affirming free will."  To put it another way, Arminianism strives to preserve the goodness of God by affirming a degree of free will in humans so that their sins can be primarily attributed to them and not to God, for if God is the author of sin, then he is not good.

If you are an Arminian, read this book to clarify your thoughts.  If you are a Calvinist, read this book to dispel any misconceptions about Arminianism you might have.  If you are undecided, use this book as one source among many for working through the ideas of Calvinism and Arminianism.   

UPDATE: listen to an interview with Roger Olson here: http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/cws/home

Parents as Disciple-Makers

Today I began a new sermon series that unpacks the ideas in our church's vision statement, which centers around developing distinctively Christian families.

The sermon today focused on family discipleship, and in part expounded Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 20-25, and Ephesians 6:4.  The two texts put the burden of responsibility for the spiritual training of children squarely on the shoulders of parents.  In the sermon, I argued that there are two actions parents must take for family discipleship to be successful.  One, that the parents see themselves as disciple-makers, and two, that the parents implement a strategy for discipling their children.

As I wrote out the sermon, I found myself summarizing my own approach to discipling my daughter with these words:

I must live in such a way that my child is persuaded of the relevance and truth of Jesus Christ.
I must teach in such a way that my child learns the Word of God.
I must speak in such a way that my child learns to show respect for God.
I must pray in such a way that my child will see her own desperate need for Christ.
I must exhort in such a way that my child responds to God with repentance and faith.
I must encourage in such a way that my child will serve God without reservation.
All this I must do, with God as my enabler.

   

Book Review - God's House Rules by Donald Bastian

Bishop Emeritus Donald N. Bastian preached a wonderful series of sermons last April at our church on Christian family life (you can listen to those sermons here) .  These sermons are the heart of his newly released book, God's House Rules , published by BPS of Canada.  My copy came in the mail yesterday, and I could not put it down.

Pastors, if you are looking for a book to give you spot-on illustrations for preaching on marriage, or if you need a text to give to couples in premarital counseling to help them establish a biblical view of marriage, this is the book for you.

Here are the chapter titles to give you a sense of what the book covers:

    1.  How Adam Got His Wife

    2.  Submission Is for Everyone

    3.  Submission Is a Love Gift

    4.  Husbands, Take the High Road

    5.   What God Says to Children

    6.   Recovering Fatherhood

    7.  The Family at Work

    Appendix: A Special Word to Fathers

In his book, Bastian skillfully raises the reader's esteem of marriage as a God-given institution and blessing in chapter 1, "How Adam Got His Wife."  Since our society no longer holds marriage in high esteem, this chapter is crucial for giving readers a vision of what marriage can be.  Then Bastian moves on in the rest of his book to deal with three key New Testament passages that collectively express "God's House Rules" - rules for family living.  These passages are Ephesians 5:21-6:9, Colossians 3:18-22 and 1 Peter 3:1-7.  I have never read an author deal with the controversial submission issue in such a gentle, clear handed way that did not water down the concept of submission.  Bastian pulls this off gracefully.  He does this though careful interpretation and with the kind of illustrations that enable him to clarify just what he means and does not mean.  The illustrations alone are worth the price of the book.

Particularly helpful points in the book are that submission is something all people are called to in some form or other in life, not just wives, and that submission is a love gift from wife to husband, i.e., it cannot be coerced.  Further, the husband submits to his wife through servant leadership.  Again, Bastian's illustrations clarify his vision of what submission looks like in the marriage relationship.

Also helpful is a pointed discussion of the role of husbands and fathers and the high demands God makes of them.  This section alone is a must-read in our day of disengaged, distant, and absentee fathers.

Buy the book.  Give it as a gift.  Put it in your church library.  Give one to your pastor.  Read it together as a couple.  It will bless you.

 

Reasonable Views on Halloween

Over the years I have wrestled with the whole issue of how a Christian should view Halloween.  Am I dabbling in paganism if I let my child go trick-or-treating, etc.?  Albert Mohler provides an interesting overview of the issues in "Is Halloween All That Significant?"

Dr. Walston has put up a good post on his blog entitled "Of Halloween and Rubber Tanks".  I encourage you to read both these articles and respond to their comments.

As for me, I'll be taking my 3 1/2 year old out for candy again this year.

The Bumper Sticker Lady

Last week I was driving in Indianapolis and noticed a car pass me that had a significant number of bumper stickers on it. One bumper sticker may not grab my attention, but cluster of them will, because they might have a common theme that tells me something about the owner of the car. I’ve seen clusters of bumper stickers on cars that are humorous or are centered around a sport or particular athletic team. But the cluster in front of me last week wasn’t about any lighthearted or benign theme; no, the theme was political and religious - and it was anger toward Christians and traditional values. That grabbed my attention so I picked up my PDA and clicked the record button and read off the stickers so I could think about them later.

The bumper sticker collection on the back of the young woman’s car read as follows:

  If you can’t trust me with a choice how can you trust me with a child.

  Evolution is just a theory, kind of like gravity.

  Last time we mixed politics an religion, people got burned at the stake.

  Oh well, I wasn’t using my civil liberties anyhow.

  Sorry I missed church. I’ve been busy practicing witchcraft and becoming  a lesbian.

  The aliens have landed and they are eating the skinny blonds first.

  You mean shopping for more useless crap isn’t the meaning of life?

  I love women.

I’m not shocked at seeing a list like this in Indianapolis because you’d expect such thinking to be openly expressed in a large city. But I’ve seen a similar list on a car here in Kokomo and in other smaller towns. The young woman driving the car, I gather, is angry. She is angry at Christians whom she believes are trying to impose their beliefs and way of life on her, or who at least have the audacity to assert that Christianity is exclusively true, something that is anathema in a relativistic, postmodern world. She feels persecuted (Christian readers: catch the irony here?). She’s angry enough that she puts provocative statements on the backside of her car so that she can angrily rub her beliefs in the face of drivers behind her. She is openly trying to provoke a response by communicating, “Leave me alone. Back off with your traditional garbage and let me do whatever I want to do.” I wonder if she hopes that being so aggressive and brash will get Christians and other traditionalists to back off and be quiet. She is not interested in debate or real discussion but intimidate her opponents.  She’s angry. And she’s very lost.

I could go through each of these bumper stickers and point out the logical and factual flaws that they fall into. But what I am concerned with is how does a Christian evangelize such a person? I find it easy to share Christ with spiritually apathetic people because they generally don’t lash back. I know how to share Christ with people who feel guilt - the gospel is just what they need. But what about the bumper sticker woman who is angry at Christians, who has decided that we Christians are the real oppressors in society, people who get our jollies out of trying to cram our beliefs down the throats of others, people who are intellectually unsophisticated, behind-the-times, illogical and just plain stupid. How do we share Jesus with someone who honestly believes the world would be lot better place if Christians were not in it?

The first thing we must  remember is the spiritual condition that all non-Christians are in. The Apostle Paul describes the spiritual condition of unbelievers in blunt terms: spiritually dead in sins, following the course (final destination, i.e. destruction) of this world, following the devil (unaware), living as sons of disobedience, living in the passions of the flesh, facing God’s wrath, darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, hard of heart, in bondage to the elemental spirits of the world, blinded by the god of this world, and in a state of rebellion (Ephesians2:1-13, 4:17, Gal. 4:3, 2 Cor. 4:4, Romans 1:18-19, etc.).

 This condition reminds me that the bumper sticker lady and myself do not merely share differences of opinion but have different Gods. Her problem is primarily rebellion against God, not me. With that in mind, isn’t her behavior what we should expect from a unbeliever? While all unbelievers, including the bumper sticker lady, are in the spiritual condition Paul describes, not all are as overt and blatant about their rebellion as she is. She is simply expressing openly her lostness in a brash way. This is all to say that such a person is really no more lost than a quiet, polite unbeliever. She is merely more offensive to me.

The second thing to remember is our responsibility to engage them in conversation. Paul tells the believers in Philippians 1:28 not to be frightened by opponents and avoid them, but to conduct themselves wisely toward outsiders, speaking to them gracefully, skillfully (Phil. 1:28, 4:5-6). And Peter tells his readers of their obligation to be prepared to engage unbelievers with a defense of the gospel and to converse with them in a gentle, respectful manner (1 Peter 3:15-16). These verses compel me to study apologetics and to meet the challenges of the bumper sticker lady in a graceful way. The last thing she will respect is ignorance and the last thing she will respond to is a harsh approach. We must remember that the goal in discussing her views and the gospel with her is redemption, not condemnation.

The fourth thing is to remember that only the Holy Spirit can change hearts. While our task is to witness to and argue for the hope that is within us, only the Holy Spirit can bring conviction upon the unbeliever, open his or her eyes to the truth and bring repentance and faith. This reminds me there is a point where my responsibility ends. It also reminds me that conversion is a supernatural work that goes beyond persuading the intellect, and so I must pray diligently for God to do what only God can do in the bumper sticker lady’s heart.

Those hostile to the Christian faith are bold and they are numerous. We have to learn how to be the minority view in our culture. And we have to accept the hostile attitude of some people as the natural expression of depravity.

What do you think? What else would you add here? Click on “comments” below and leave your thoughts.

So What Are You Doing Instead?

Dr. D. James Kennedy (see Mohler's Sept. 5 blog entry) of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church  died yesterday morning.  Kennedy had been out of the public eye since last January due to a heart attack and now the Lord has taken him home.  See the tribute site for him here.

Every time I think of Dr. Kennedy I think of several things: his formality, commitment to tradition and avoidance of fads, his robe, stained-glass voice, refusal to be seeker sensitive in his use of the KJV and formal worship music, etc.  But mostly I think of Evangelism Explosion, Kennedy's program for personal, and often door-to-door evangelism.  Some people complained that his system of sharing the gospel was contrived, too simplistic, lacked the fullness of what it meant to convert to Christianity, did not work with some people and just doesn't work with postmoderns, etc.  For a short time, I bought into that line of thinking.

But then it hit me: so what am I doing instead that effectively wins people to Christ?  That question hurts amidst an embarrassing and painful silence.  Kennedy's system, which is somewhat like an inductive version of the Four Spiritual Laws, won and wins people.  He actually made a difference.

So I always ask people who criticize such methods as Evangelism Explosion: what are you doing in its place?  How are you winning people?  As long as that question is followed by silence or evasive answers, I'll continue thinking (and practicing more!) that methods like Evangelism Explosion are not so bad after all.  The world cannot wait while we discard one method for none until we discover a better one.

More Thoughts on "Wanted: a Wesleyan R.C. Sproul"

After a long break from blogging due to an intense schedule and other things, I hope to begin posting at least weekly :-).  I've wanted to respond to the comments on my May 22 post for some time and although I have not had the time to reflect on them as much as I would like, below are my thoughts so far.

Patrick commented out of his experience with the Church of God, Anderson, IN. He noted that most preachers in his tribe preach sermons that “will not stay rooted in the text, nor will they spend much time teaching about doctrine.” Instead, sermons are primarily filled with stories built around a passage of Scripture. He notes that the sermons “deal more with feelings, emotions and experience than doctrine.”

I think the point Patrick here makes about many of our preachers in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition reveals an incredible lack of biblical thinking among our preachers. If experience is not built upon solid doctrine, then from where does it flow? Our imaginations? Dr. Phil? I am reminded how the Apostle Paul teaches doctrine for the first 11 chapters of Romans, then moves on to application with chapters 12-16. The big “Therefore” in Romans 12:1 is the hinge of whole book as it moves from the didactic to the imperative. Jesus himself, too, taught doctrine and then applied it. Indeed his whole Sermon on the Mount ends with the application metaphor of a house built upon sand or rock. Our conservative Reformed counterparts have not forgotten this, but we have. And how are we to pass on what it truly means to be Wesleyan unless we teach doctrinal distinctives? John Wesley knew this well. Read any of his standard 52 sermons – they are heavy on doctrine and logical, exegetical thought as they move toward life application.

Patrick also notes that there is a problem with our understanding of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.  He writes, "The fact that we are supposed to be Spirit-filled means that life gets very confusing for some of us Wesleyan-Holiness people when we fail or are depressed. "If I have the Spirit, why am I not happy?" So perhaps that fuels the need for even more emotional (and self-help) sermons and books instead of doctrine, tradition, and Biblical exposition." This point is particularly interesting to me when I think of John Piper, the passionate Reformed Baptist who emphasizes "Christian Hedonism."  Piper is always heavy on doctrine in his preaching and teaching, but for him doctrine is the path toward great joy, for the more one understands the deep things of God, the more one can appreciate, celebrate and enjoy God himself.  Thus Piper arrives at an emotional boost through heavy-duty Reformed theology and a firm belief that his thoughts, values, world view, etc. must be controlled by scriptural thinking.  But Patrick points out that in some Wesleyan circles (and I would argue it is true far more in "pop" evangelical books) the path to happiness is not via doctrine but through self-help sermons and books that resemble more pop psychology than biblical truth.  What underlies this approach is the assumptions that the Bible does not have what we most need for emotional well-being and that our happiness is nearly all-important.  Certainly this is an effective, but unintentional attack on biblical inspiration and a subtle form of self-idolatry.

John (read all his interesting comments attached to the May 22 post!) points out that many evangelical publishers are hesitant to publish authors from the Arminian tradition, as he would know from his past experience in publishing.  But more interestingly, John points to my alma mater, Asbury Theological Seminary as a problem, too.  ATS, while it is an independent school in the Wesleyan tradition, has a very high percentage of its students from the United Methodist Church. Typically, conservative, evangelical United Methodists attend ATS to escape the lousy and liberal United Methodist seminaries.  This high concentration of United Methodists at ATS has given some non-Wesleyan evangelicals the notion that ATS itself is probably liberal since most of its students come from a liberal denomination.  This is not true, of course, but when the flagship seminary of the Wesleyan theological tradition caters to UM students, it just looks suspicious, and that suspicion carries over to impressions and assumptions about the faculty.  The faculty, then, carrying this stigma, may find it difficult to obtain national ministry platforms among conservatives.  But are they seeking such platforms?  During my time at ATS none of them seemed interested in a national radio or other media ministry.

Both John and Patrick make good points and I have highlighted a few here.  But my conclusion so far is different than theirs.  The reason we don't have a Wesleyan R.C. Sproul is because we simply have not seen the urgency of having our own national ministries to promote our theology.

What do you think?