Tim Challies posts a portion of his interview with Dr. Sam Waldron on the subject of cessationism and continuationists. Great discussion.
Here is the concludinng paragraph from today’s post:
But you see, here’s the thing, Tim. I’ve tried to be very kind and focused on what all continuationists say and even the most moderate of them. But clearly the charismatic movement is not characteristically like Wayne Grudem and John Piper. The practice of tongues speaking and prophecy, as carefully as it’s defined and restricted in their theology, is somewhat rare and so when you take my thesis and begin to apply it more broadly to even mainline charismatic churches I think it’s going to serve to make a radically more Word-centered kind of Christianity. I don’t want to say that about Grudem and Piper, but they are theologians and pastors who understand all the issues and qualifications that they need to make even as continuationists. The people in the pew, the people in the Assembly of God churches out there, the other charismatic churches, aren’t making those restrictions and qualifications and for them I think my book would strike a tremendous blow – the thesis, the argument of the book – would strike a tremendous blow against something that is very distracting and takes them in an emotional and distracting direction that is not true to a Word-centered Christianity. I think my book would help them to see the problem and reject it root and branch and become more Word-centered and avoid a lot of the misguided practices and the false directions of life and guidance that they’re taking in response to the teaching of continuationist prophecy and tongues-speaking.
I look forward to the next post as well as the interview with Wayne Grudem.
