Hey Greg, have you seen this at Common Grounds Online?  Glenn Lucke is asking whether Dr. Mohler is contradicting himself by saying complementarianism is a second-order issue but including it in the Together for the Gospel statement of faith.  Glenn brought this issue up a few weeks ago in reference to the T4G quartet, but in this article, he references Mohler specifically because of an August 23 BP article where Mohler specifically calls the women’s issue a second-order issue.

Glenn seems to be asking: Look doesn’t including a statement on complementarianism in a statement of faith automatically make it a first and not a second order issue?  Here is Glenn, himself — referring to the T4G statement:

However, perhaps Mohler, et.al. do NOT use the term “the Gospel” in this ultimate, first-order sense when they use it in Article XVI.   Maybe they have one of the many alternative meanings of the Gospel in mind, a meaning that is not about the first order issue of justification.

If I’m reasoning correctly, and I may not be, and thus I invite gracious correction, it seems to me that either Mohler means something of a second-order nature when he uses “the Gospel” in Ariticle XVI or he has contradicted his words in the theological triage article about women issues being second-order.

Or, still another alternative, perhaps Mohler believes that even errors on second order issues damage a church’s witness to the first-order matter of the Gospel.

Greg (when you are done preaching this weekend), or any other elder, do you want to address this question?

Posted in Theology & Doctrine |