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From Joseph Patrick...aka Gerry Milligan

I have just received an e-mail from a former colleague in the Arabian Peninsula who said David Platt was "very involved" with 9Marks churches. I have tried a google search and am not that clear on what 9Marks churches are all about. This friend intimated something less than wholesome. Me? I'm so technologically challenged that I am not sure what I discovered. Could some of you assist me?

Grace and Truth Joseph Patrick...aka Gerry Milligan

One of the networks of loosely affiliated mostly, perhaps all, Calvinistic churches across denominational lines...criticized for heavyhandedness concerning church membership and the practice of church discipline. Platt's church is listed as part of the network. Popular and influential pastor Mark Dever is honcho.

Resources:

official site

for criticism

The 9m church on Dubai is at the center of some criticism.

I have no personal experience with any 9m church or pastor.

Seems to be that Dever is one of those pastors that I think of as a conservative neo-presbyterian. He is into the Board of Elders model for church governance and, as William has said, a conservative Calvinist. I looked up affiliated churches online here in Iowa. Most of them I'd never heard of but those I have were all Calvinist/Reformed.

I'd never heard of this group before this thread.

We went to a wedding of an Esperantist in Enumclaw, WA, last weekend, held in . My guess is the (interim) pastor who officiated is a rather conservative Presbyterian, but what I'm wondering is whether the Baptist Church kitty-corner from the Presbys----might be a 9Marks church, or are Baptists too different to be welcome in that outfit?

Ed: Hauro, when you write 'I'm wondering is whether the Baptist Church kitty-corner from the Presbys--Sovereign Grace Baptist--might be a 9Marks church, or are Baptists too different to be welcome in that outfit?"

I am wondering which Baptist you are wondering about, independents, Southern, ABC-USA, or any one of the several predominantly black brands with in the denomination.

If you listen closely to Dever you hear him always referring to pastors as "He or Him". So hopefully that is not an ABC-USA congregation. I am 99.999% sure it is not CBF.

To me the "9 marks" are good but I have some serious disagreement with the organizations (Dever's) definition of some things in those marks. Gender of pastors being only, Elder rule and TULIP theology are others.

Translation from Fundie speak into English, "If you don't belong to my kind of church you may not be a Christian at all."

Sandy when I was hunting for churches with membership in his group all I came across were Calvinist/Reformed churches.

Sandy,

I'm forgetting you and I have different definitions of what constitutes "fundamentalists." In my book if the pastor is an inerrantist then he is a fundamentalist. That probably doesn't fit your definition.

The quote you gave, "If you have no interest in actually committing yourself to an actual group of gospel-believing, Bible-teaching Christians, you might question whether you belong to the body of Christ at all!” sets all kinds of alarms and red flags off for me because of code wording that it is employed.

What other kind of Christians are there other than "gospel-believing and Bible teaching." ? None that I'm aware of. However this is usual far right Christian speak for the following syllogism.

Premise one - If you don't follow the Bible you aren't a Christian.
Premise two - I have THE right interpretation of scripture.
Therefore - if you don't follow me (or my group, or my understanding of the Bible) you aren't a Christian.

I hear it all the time out of Christians who make their interpretation of the Bible THE one way to read and follow it.

I would say that belief in inerrancy is probably the main point that defines "conservative" but not "fundamentalist." Fundamentalists self-identify, with a lot of specific detail of interpretation that differs from conservative theology on many points. After reading some of his work, I'd say Dever probably does define "Bible believing" with "inerrancy," but I'd say that's the practical theology of a majority of Christians, and particularly of the younger seeker group to which Dever's church appeals. They're not so much setting themselves in opposition to others, as they are defining themselves. And it appears to be working.

Maybe William has some observations regarding Dever's position within the SBC, but they don't appear to have been drawn into the Calvinism vs. Non-Calvinist debate. They are pretty supportive, and actively involved in the SBC. The first one of his books I picked up was at a book signing in the bookstore area of the SBC in Indianapolis. But I'm not convinced that, outside of a few bloggers, there's really all that much to it.

I don't see the Sovereign Grace Baptist Church that Haruo mentioned on the list in Washington state, though I see quite a few Baptist churches.

Dever is very influential with the Calvinist crowd' particularly younger ones. 9M stance on church membership and discipline is controversial in some quarters because it is considered abusive.

After reading a couple of his books, I'd say that his definition of "Biblical" is that church order and practices should be based on what is found in the Bible, and not in church tradition. For example, their churches are "elder led" so they have elders involved in leading the church's ministries, included and ordained as one group, including pastors and associates who are vocational. Use of the term "biblical" is definitive. "Where the scripture speaks, we speak; where they are silent, we are silent."

The church website notes that their Sunday morning worship service begins at 10:30 and concludes at 12:45, with a sermon lasting an hour. That's definitely a Reformed perspective on both worship and the place of the sermon in it.

Were any of the apostles baptized?
[silence]
Where I can find a proof text, I speak; where I can't, I am silent.

When a sermon is an hour long, it's often more suppository that expository.

The Nazarene churches I attended when I lived in California tended to feature a lot of singing and short sermons. At one church we had an interim pastor who was retired from the seminary near San Francisco. He had come from the oil country in the Central Valley and said "I always told my students: "If you don't hit pay dirt in 20 minutes, STOP BORING!"

The SBC terminology that I've always been familiar with is "conservative," including those who believe in inerrancy and infallibility, "moderate" who were the theological conservatives who accepted inerrancy but didn't think everyone in the SBC needed to, and "liberal" for those who didn't accept inerrancy, and didn't accept the text of the scripture as infallible or authoritative.

If inerrancy is equal to "fundamentalism," then "Fundamentalists," by that definition, constitute the vast majority of non-Catholic Christians in the world, and in the US. But there are few others who use the term that broadly. That is the equivalent of calling all non-inerrantists "liberals."

Virtually all conservative Evangelical denominations hold to inerrancy, and put it in their faith statement as a high priority. And few of them would self-identify as Fundamentalist, or would be identified that way.