Reflections on the Auburn Theology
T. David Gordon
[N.b. this appeared in By Faith Alone, ed. Gary L. W. Johnson and Guy P. Waters (Wheaton: Crossway, 2007), pp. 113-125.
Many thanks are due to E. Calvin Beisner, and to the participants at the conference he hosted, and for those responsible for placing before the public the essays contained in The Auburn Theology: Pros and Cons. A format such as this is very helpful; and those interested in the question/s will find abundant food for thought here. I learned from every contribution in the volume. Sometimes, after a work like this is published, hindsight provides either a benefit, or at least a perspective, not enjoyed in the original work. In what follows, I have the benefit of all the insights of all the contributors, and therefore offer only what I consider to be an additional thought or two, without repeating (I hope) what is said in the book. Much of what follows will make less sense if you haven’t already read the book. I have six reflections (and an Addendum) on the book and the Auburn Theology itself, and offer them for whatever help they may be.
1. I Have Sympathies with Both the Pros and the Cons
Briefly, for those attempting to smoke out where I am coming from on this issue; I find myself in profound sympathy with the concerns of the Auburn theologians. I share vigorously each of Auburn’s stated concerns about the individualist, revivalist/pietist, non-ecclesiastical, non-sacramental nature of so much of the Reformed experience today, as my hapless Gordon-Conwell and Grove City students will abundantly testify. In this sense, I have profound, vital, energetic, and zealous affinities with the stated concerns of the Auburn theology.
However, I fear that Auburn moves in a Romish direction (rather than in an historic Protestant direction) for the cure. In this sense, my sympathies are with those critics of Auburn who defend (and articulate unambiguously) the historic federal theology, with its corollary doctrines of the conditional/probationary nature of the Adamic covenant, the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, and the exclusive (sola) role of faith as the instrument of our justification. In this sense, I have profound, vital, energetic, and zealous affinities with the theology of the opponents of Auburn.
2. The Auburn Theology is Reactionary
Auburn is like the little girl who had a curl right in the middle of her forehead: When it is good, it is very, very good, but when it is bad it is horrid. Its very strength is its weakness; its keen perception of the errors of individualist, pietist, revivalist, and dispensationalist evangelicalism has driven it to make statements that are nearly as erroneous in the opposite direction. We might even suggest that Pastor Steven Schlissel embodies the best and worst of Auburn: A great, bombastic provocateur, who may be temperamentally unsuited to be a theologian. As a Socratic myself, I love those who make us think, and am delighted that Pastor Schlissel does the very thing Socrates promoted; question the received tradition. No one does it with greater verve or point than Pastor Schlissel, and I am delighted that the God who gives differing gifts has given us this genuinely unique individual, with his genuinely distinctive contributions. Raising a question and answering it are not the same thing, however; and the broad, sweeping, synthetic mind that can perceive patterns that others might not otherwise see is not necessarily the best mind for solving intricate questions of theology. I think Pastor Schlissel has served us well by belling several cats; but I’m not sure he knows what to do after he has belled them. And, in a nutshell, that is how I view Auburn; I “hate the Nicolaitans, which they also hate,” but I have attempted to avoid being reactionary. I dislike dispensationalism, for instance, but don’t intend to wear a yarmulke.
3. Concerns Regarding New Ways of Seeing
Generally, those who think they are working within a new paradigm have a tendency to dismiss counter-arguments without engaging them or refuting them. Whether they do so overtly, or merely implicitly (not really permitting the force of the arguments to be registered), there can be a gnostic tendency to believe that “outsiders” just can’t appreciate what one is saying. Several of the Auburn contributors appear to have embraced such a belief, that they are working within another paradigm, which outsiders just cannot understand.
Further, those who consider themselves to be working within a different paradigm often fail to recognize that their own presuppositions are also culturally conditioned. While intellectual history is a perfectly valid academic discipline, and while it is always appropriate to consider the cultural conditioning of any theological or creedal statement, it is also equally necessary to recognize that a century from now, others will be studying us in the same manner. For instance, as I have already mentioned, there are profound evidences that the Auburn Theology is American, conditioned by (and largely in reaction to) distinctive features of the American Reformed and Evangelical experience. It is animated by its reaction to individualism, Pietism, Revivalism, and (especially but less self-consciously) Dispensationalism. Thus, the Auburn Theology is not presuppositionally pure (nor could any human movement be so), nor is it merely or even primarily influenced by its ostensible commitment to biblical theology vs. systematic theology.
Indeed, I would suggest that, ironically, the Auburn Theology is a remarkably twentieth-century American Evangelical phenomenon; it shares the biblicism that has characterized much of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Fundamentalist and conservative Evangelical thinking. It wishes to “hear the Bible on its own terms,” and to do theology ostensibly as it is done in the Bible (a goal of the various Pietist predecessors to Evangelicalism). These are biblicist mantras; the somewhat naive chant of those who dismiss all of those earlier, diligent laborers in the Church as though they did not care to be biblical. Ostensibly, Auburn Theologians wish to employ biblical terms as they are employed in the Bible, leaping over nineteen centuries of usage of such language. Even if this were a laudable goal (and I don’t necessarily think it is), the confusion that results is enormous: terms that have been traditionally understood (I mean that literally: understood in a particular way by a particular Christian tradition) in one manner are employed in another manner, without explaining that this is being done.[1] This necessarily leads to confusion; and Auburn theologians have no right to complain or whine about being misunderstood when they so frequently use old terms in new ways, without explaining to their audience that they are doing so.
As an example of this, note that you can almost employ, as a litmus test, the term “covenant,” to determine whether a person is Auburn or not. If a person uses the term in the singular, and with the definite article, he is ordinarily an Auburnite. They refer again and again to “the covenant,” as opposed to “a covenant,” “the covenants,” or some particular covenant (e.g. the first Noahic covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, the covenant with the Levites to be priests, the covenant with David to build God’s house, the Sinai covenant, the New Covenant, et al.). I must say that I never know what they are talking about when they say “the covenant.” Do they mean the Sinai covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, the New Covenant? Do they mean the Adamic covenant of works (certainly not)? Do they mean the (confessional-but-not-very-biblical) “covenant of grace?”
Ironically here, they use language that is neither confessional/traditional nor biblical. The Bible frequently refers to “covenants” in the plural, or to some particular covenant, but never refers to “the covenant,” without an immediate context that delineates the specific covenant being referred to.[2] Why this neologistic reference to some nebulous, unspecified “the covenant?” Because, like their not-too-distant progenitor John Murray, the Auburn theologians are deeply driven by an anti-dispensationalist agenda; and therefore, like their more-proximate progenitors, Norman Shephard and Greg Bahnsen, they shy away from using biblical language either biblically or traditionally, in a manner that candidly recognizes the plurality of biblical covenants.[3] For all the Auburn approval of a kind of biblicist using of biblical terms in a biblical manner, their oft-repeated but lexically unbiblical “the covenant”is a profound exception to their profession. And for all their professed interest in the biblical narrative, they remove from that narrative one of its most important features--that it is the narrative of a succession of different historical covenants that God has made with a variety of different parties, for different proximate purposes, though the same distant end (the redemption of sinners in Christ).
Some Auburnites have objected to theology that is informed by Enlightenment rationalism, or earlier (medieval?) concern to make contrasts or distinctions. Totally apart from this anchronism of perceiving the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries as influenced by the Enlightenment, Calvin Beisner has additionally (if pointedly) criticized the Auburn objection to logic or careful definitions. If the pairing of contrasts is an extra-biblical tendency of later intellectual traditions, how do we account for the Bible itself making so many such dualistic contrasts as these: light and darkness, folly and wisdom, righteous and unrighteous, wide way and narrow way, good and evil, etc. ? The Auburn shotgun assault on (all?) contrasting pairs probably makes some Auburn theologians themselves nervous, especially since the contrast between being “in the covenant” and “outside of the covenant”[4] is so common in their own language.
Similarly, if making refined distinctions is a bugaboo of a later intellectual heritage, how does this square with John’s statement, often referred to in the essays: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us” (1John 2:19). The very fact that commentators and theologians still debate what John may have meant by this, as well as the commonsense recognition that the statement is a little difficult to fathom, suggests that the tendency to make fine intellectual distinctions was not an invention of the medieval era. Indeed the distinction here is so fine that in the first three prepositional phrases, the Greek is actually identical (ex hemon). That is, in the original, the subtlety is even greater: “They went out of us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.” This kind of exegetical version of “Who’s on First?” may not be easy, but it is not a post-biblical invention.
4. Assurance Is an Important Pastoral and Theological Issue
While I have expended a good amount of my professional life in academia (13 years at Gordon-Conwell, and six years here at Grove City College), I also spent nine years as a pastor, and other years as a ruling elder. This pastoral part of me cannot help but join Auburn in lamenting the effects of unsacramental Pietism (including Puritan Pietism) in robbing saints of that appropriate assurance of faith that should be one result of the church’s ministry. I also join them in believing that baptism should be of greater importance (especially in our regard for infant children of believers) than it ordinarily is. Indeed, when we buried our first daughter, who died of leukemia, we marked her grave with a stone that had only her full name, the dates of her birth and death, and the date of her baptism. The baptism of infants declares that it is right for both church and family to include children in prayers, instruction, and worship, and to regard them as belonging to Christ until/unless they prove otherwise. Similarly, when I pastored, we observed the Lord’s Supper weekly, believing with Calvin that the sacrament should seal the word preached, and offer comfort to saints, confirming their interest in Him.
Yet even here, I do not believe the sacraments themselves are the appropriate source of assurance, or any particular doctrine of the sacraments (I don’t think I spent much time teaching on the sacraments at our church, but I did celebrate the Supper each week). The appropriate source of Christian assurance is the person, character, and work of Christ, which is explained by the Word of God and sealed by the sacraments. Thus, even in the case of our little Marian Ruth, it was not her baptism itself that gave us comfort before and after her death; but the picture therein of a sin-washing Christ, who suffered the little ones to be brought to him, since of such were the kingdom of heaven. That this Christ permits us to symbolize his saving work in a rite that includes even our infant children is a reflection of his sovereign graciousness; that he can rescue even those who do not yet recognize their need to be rescued. The rite of baptism itself gives me comfort neither for my daughter nor for myself (as I write this I have cancer also, and may join our Marian not only by leaving this life prior to threescore-and-ten, but by leaving it through a similar vehicle); my comfort comes from believing that Christ can save the vilest and most helpless of sinners.
5. I Am Staggered by the Lack of Discussion of John Murray’s Biblical Theology
Many families have a dark secret that they prefer not to talk about: the uncle who gets drunk every Thanksgiving and makes passes at the women-folk; the eccentric nephew who can’t hold a job, etc. These family secrets are well-known but rarely discussed. The Reformed version of this is John Murray’s biblical theology. For all of the discussion of biblical/narrative theology vs. systematic theology in the essays, only Dr. Smith and Rev. Robbins made reference to the particular biblical theology of John Murray, and that only in passing as they (properly) focused on the consequences of Murray’s rejection of the covenant of works for the doctrine of imputation. And the Auburnites, whose entire paradigm comes from Murray, appear hesitant to state the matter publicly, with the exception of Pastor Trouwburst.