St. Boniface House

One of the things that I think has been lost in all the FV hubbub is the fact that the conference where all this began was a Pastor’s Conference.  Of course it didn’t really begin there, but that’s where some folks noticed that there were people in Reformed Churches that were talking like Calvin again.

I suspect that at least some of the “talking past each other” that we’ve witnessed for the last several years could be traced to this.  The anti-FV folks want to make abstract hypothetical propositions about what happens in the ordo salutis, and the FV folks are discussing what the Bible calls them as pastors to say to Mr. and Mrs. M. who sit in the fourth row of seats in the middle section with all their children.  This is surely an oversimplification, and doesn’t begin to account for the whole disagreement.  But I am convinced that at the heart of the disagreement is a failure to understand that we are trying to recover a theology that is pastorally useful and consistent with the way the Apostles and Prophets address God’s people.