Once you start a fight, be prepared to stay in the ring until you win it. Otherwise, don't start it. Let me provide an example.
Twenty-five years ago, the faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary published a symposium. It was an attack on theonomy: Theonomy: A Reformed Critique.
The seminary was founded in the midst of national theological controversy in 1929. This was the era of the fundamentalist-modernist battles in the mainline Protestant denominations. The founder of Westminster, J. Gresham [GRESSum] Machen [MAYchen], was a major figure in that battle. He was widely regarded as the most educated man taking a stand against the modernists.
In 1990, the faculty had not previously produced a book attacking any theological group, movement, or trend. Its three earlier symposia were these: The Infallible Word (1946), Scripture and Confession 1973, and Inerrancy and Hermeneutic (1988).
The 1990 book was primarily an attack on Greg Bahnsen's book, Theonomy in Christian Ethics (Presbyterian & Reformed, 1977). That book was a slight revision of his Th.M thesis" "The Theonomic Responsibility of the Civil Magistrate." Westminster granted him a Th.M in 1973 on the basis of that thesis.
Bahnsen was the most brilliant student in apologetics in the history of the Seminary, and everyone on the faculty in 1990 knew it. He was the only WTS student who was granted the Th.M degree before his M.Div degree. He completed the two-year program while simultaneously earning his M.Div. The whole thing took him three years. Because the seminary grants the highest-ranking degrees first at the graduation ceremony, it granted him his Th.M at the same ceremony, but before granting him his M.Div later in the program.
The seminary had another problem. Cornelius Van Til wanted Bahnsen to succeed him as professor of apologetics. He died in 1987. Bahnsen earned his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Southern California in 1976. He was the most qualified candidate on paper. He was also Van Til's most intellectually qualified defender. He wrote two essays in a Van Til festschrift, Foundations of Christian Scholarship: Essays in the Van Til Perspective (Ross House, 1976), which I edited. But by 1990, it was clear that the seminary was never going to take Van Til's advice on this matter. Basically, the seminary's book was a public theological justification of its decision not to hire Bahnsen.
The faculty had a third problem. Its regular publisher was Presbyterian & Reformed. But P&R had published Bahnsen's book. It had also published R. J. Rushdoony's books from 1959 until 1973. In 1973, it published his Institutes of Biblical Law, which launched the theonomic movement. It had published my book on Karl Marx in 1968. Yet here was the faculty saying in effect that these books were all theologically deviant. So, the seminary was forced to go to a fundamentalist publisher, Zondervan.
The book appeared in 1990. In 1991, my Institute for Christian Economics published three responses: Greg Bahnson, No Other Standard: Theonomy and Its Critics; Theonomy: An Informed Response, a collection of essays by the targets of the Westminster book; and my book, Westminster's Confession: The Abandonment of Van Til's Legacy. These books are still available as free PDF downloads. Click on the titles.
The faculty's book went out of print within three years. You can buy a used copy on Amazon. You can also buy a spiral-bound photocopy for $70. The seminary sells it in its book store.
CHALLENGES AND RESPONSES
If you start a movement, you had better be prepared for criticism. The more influence the movement has, the greater the quantity of criticism. At that point, you must decide which critics to refute. You cannot answer them all.
I made a decision early in the process: to respond with a book to anyone who wrote a book, and to do this within a few months -- or simultaneously in one case. This is the David vs. Goliath strategy: take out the biggest opponent, and the others will prudently stay on the sidelines. They will not want to suffer similar consequences. Nobody likes getting beaten up in full public view.
Rushdoony's strategy was never to respond in public. That was never my strategy. My strategy was to respond fast with rhetorical guns blazing.
My strategy worked in 1991. There was never another major book criticizing the movement's theology.
I had done this three times by 1991. In 1985, a dispensational accountant named Dave Hunt published an attack: The Seduction of Christianity. Gary DeMar and I debated him and Thomas Ice in public. You can see it on YouTube. My Institute for Christian Economics co-published a response: The Reduction of Christianity: Dave Hunt's Theology of Cultural Surrender (1988).
Then Thomas Ice and Wayne House wrote Dominion Theology: Blessing or Curse? (1988). The ICE published a response by Bahnsen and Kenneth Gentry, House Divided: The Break-up of Dispensational Theology (1989).
Then Hal Lindsey got into the act: The Road to Holocaust (1989). I got wind of it in advance. I was even sent page proofs. So, I got Gary DeMar and Peter Leithart to produce a response: The Legacy of Hatred Continues: A Response to Hal Lindsey's The Road to Holocaust. We had it ready for the Christian Booksellers Convention 30 days later, where Lindsey's book was announced to the world. I had a table with our books for sale. Our response to him was available. My book guy walked over to his book table and handed it to the girl on duty. Lindsey was not expecting this.
So, within months of every attack, I made sure there was at least a book in response. In the case of Westminster's attack, three. I made sure we got the last word. This shut them up. They never responded. They ceased all public criticism. That was what my strategy was intended to accomplish.
Here is the lesson: learn to pick your fights. Learn which challenges to ignore. You have limited resources.
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