Doug Wilson and His General Associations

This is just too much for me to lay off. The RPCNA has just come out with a few short statements rejecting the Federal Vision and the New Perspectives on Paul. Doug Wilson has attacked this statement to no one’s surprise. Now notice his response is an attack on the idea that the RPCNA stated they rejected "the theological views that are generally associated with the movements identified as "the New Perspective(s) on Paul" and the "Federal Vision"." His entire post is rhetorical flourish attacking this one line. Of course he drives it to absurd conclusions, but that is what Rev. Wilson does best: be absurd.

Let us examine exactly why the RPCNA said ‘generally associated’ with the Federal Vision. You may remember those early denunciations of the FV. They did not use ‘generally associated’ and of course the FV proponents jumped all of it. Notice the lines saying the Federal Vision is not a monolithic movement in Joseph Minich’s paper saying that they are not movements but ‘impulses’. That paper is found on the site dedicated to setting the record straight about the Federal Vision. This was of course one of the ways they rejected the attacks on the Federal Vision. Of course if that is not enough proof see Rev. Steve Wilkins’s response to the Mississippi Valley Report. It is his second reason why the report is flawed when it criticizes the Federal Vision. You remember Rev. Wilkins, right? He is the guy who just escaped discipline by fleeing to Doug Wilson’s Confederation. And just in case you did not believe me, we have the joint Federal Vision Statement itself, which I think Doug signed or wrote. It specifically states that the Federal Vision is not a ‘monolithic movement’ and is more accurately called ‘a conversation’, ‘a broad school of thought’, ‘a series of similar questions’ and so on.

So knowing the tendency of Federal Vision advocates to get cranky when lumped together it seems quite reasonable to condemn those ideas generally associated with the FV. If Doug’s complaint is like Mark Horne’s who does not want to condemn innocents by using such a broad brush, they need look no further than the second and third point of their statement. One requires the belief in several things including imputation of active obedience and justification by faith alone, and the other directs people to several other church and seminary papers further defining what they mean in their general denunciation that Doug Wilson finds so broad. Perhaps he should have kept reading.

Let me tell you why this makes me so angry. At best this is Doug Wilson trying to have his cake and eat it too by criticizing either method of attacking the FV. At worst this is Doug being completely disingenuous by taking the opposite side of what he had been doing for so long. However, I could look past both of these things. It was the last lines that made me so upset. After quoting Dr. Scott Clark’s listing of all the denominations that have rejected the FV, he makes this quip.

That's the problem with men like Athanasius. No good at math. Don't know how to count. Can read pretty good though.

Really? So, let me get this analogy straight. Doug Wilson is the persecuted champion of the Trinity. That makes all of those who disagree with him Arians and heretics. Well, at least we can all dispense with the niceties. It is clear that the Federal Vision (and those who associate with it but prefer to call themselves a conversation) is another gospel. They teach another gospel. Finally, Doug is honest, and he rejects the traditional Reformation doctrine of salvation by faith alone as like that of the Arians: heresy.

I hope no one is left who misunderstands exactly where Rev. Wilson stands on the playing field. He is not in the middle, on the side line or in the stands. And he is clearly not on the team of salvation by faith alone.