Volume 6 Issue 1

At the November meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, Roger Nicole, a founding member of the society, made a motion that John Sanders and Clark Pinnock be dropped from membership based on their high profile publications advancing open theism, or free-will theism, citing their positions as breaking the allegiance to inerrancy and the triune nature of God which members pledge themselves to each year. After a highly emotional open mike session in which the vast majority of speakers rejected the notion that Sanders or Pinnock had violated ETS membership standards and pleaded for ETS to remain a research society which encourages healthy debate of evolving thought like open theism rather than one which chokes out such debate, the vote was held. By a standing vote, the motion passed, not by much, but by enough. Procedurally, the two now must have a hearing with the Executive Committee, after which this committee will recommend or not recommend an official vote for exclusion. If they recommend for exclusion, that vote will take place in the November, 2003, meeting in Atlanta.

Open theism suggests that God chooses to limit his knowledge of the future the majority of the time in order to take account of choices people make through history and as individuals move through their days and years. Most basically, this means that God really takes into account your prayer requests as his will unfolds and that your own life is not scripted but is truly written as you make choices along the way. This is truly an anti-Calvinist position; some would say an improved Arminian position. Regardless, open theists go about their work by taking Scripture seriously, though reading key passages which show God changing his mind, for instance, quite differently (more literally) than many have in the past. Neither do they challenge the notion of God’s trinitarian nature. My point, they don’t violate ETS convictions. They simply challenge traditional readings of Scripture and a questionable Platonic philosophy they believe controlled the reading of Scripture about God from the beginning.

Coming from the perspective of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement, a movement that is primarily Arminian in orientation, believing that individuals do make real choices to becoming Christians, and advocates allowing Scripture to speak, plus having our own historical wranglings with Calvinist teachings, it is hard not to be sympathetic with Pinnock, Sanders, and other open theists. We have shown our interest in hearing firsthand their views by having Greg Boyd as special guest speaker for our first SCJ conference last March and welcomed Sanders as the respondent at our Stone-Campbell group at ETS this past November. Both come across as stimulating, honest, convicted, and committed to Christ and Scripture. This is not a cult. It is a legitimate line of theological inquiry that is still evolving and deserves honest debate. I recommend the Gamaliel position: if it has no merit, it will die out; if it does, then it will grow.

I was pleased to see that every person who was at the vote last year from Stone-Campbell heritage, voted against the motion, as did nearly everyone from Trinity International University and University of Aberdeen (my evangelical alma maters). I encourage SCJ readers who are ETS members to come to Atlanta and vote against the final motion to exclude Pinnock and Sanders should it be presented.

This volume of SCJ includes our second article about open theism. Though not as critical of open theism as Ron Highfield, “Does the World Limit God? Assessing the Case for Open Theism” in SCJ 5.1 (Spring, 2002), in this issue Robert Kurka, Lincoln Christian College, does challenge the generally held notion that open theism is an “improved” Arminianism. Lloyd Knowles offers a careful examination, based on his Ph.D. thesis, of the relationship of Sidney Rigdon’s movement from being an active preacher in the early Restoration Movement to his attachment to Joseph Smith and the Latter Day Saints. Jennifer Thweatt-Bates, a recent graduate of Abilene Christian University, provides an exquisite paper based on her M.A. thesis (first presented at the 2002 SCJ Conference), which explores how chaos theory, mostly a common scientific notion, can help explain seemingly random evil. Jennifer Hamilton, Rochester College, in our first article focused on pop cultural, treats us to an intriguing analysis of last year’s post 9/11 Super Bowl pregame and halftime shows to show that these shows were filled to the brim with images that were not just about entertainment. Duane Warden, Harding University, questions the common tendency to make Jesus’ story of the Rich Man and Lazarus a story about an evil man and a good man. Chris Rollston, Emmanuel School of Religion, and an SCJ Editor, explains the historical and biblical evidence which suggests that the Hebrew people as a whole arrived at their dogged monotheism in stages rather than all at once, as we often assume.

William R. Baker, Editor