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The Future of Protestantism Full Roundup

May 7th, 2014 | 4 min read

By Jake Meador

Normally this would go up over at Notes, but we wanted to be sure that everyone sees the full roundup of responses (so far) to last week’s Future of Protestantism event at Biola. There figure to be more responses in the weeks to come so we’ll keep this piece updated as new responses are published.

Dr. Leithart wrote about some of the things he wished he’d said here. He then further clarified his views in three subsequent posts at First Things.

Dr. Trueman has written some brief reflections for Reformation 21 here and here as well as a lengthier piece for First Things here.

Dr. Sanders has written his own reflections on the event here.

Pastor Doug Wilson has posted three responses over at his blog so far.

Patrick Schreiner wondered if Leithart’s ecumenism is simply trinitarianism.

Brad Littlejohn has a nice summary of the event and raised a few questions as well over at First Things.

Chad Graham connected the discussion with some issues raised in Stanley Hauerwas’s recent interview with Al Mohler.

Brett McCracken kindly wrote out the 20 points Leithart made about his ideal church of the future.

You can read the Moscow Coffee Review’s summary here.

Matthew Emerson wasn’t sure where the Baptists fit into this discussion.

Matt Jenson summarized the evening for the Scriptorium.

I wrote about a tangential issue to the debate for Mere O, arguing that church membership must be based on more than theological agreement.

Ben Carmack wonders about the role that adiaphora should play in the discussion.

Ian Clary thought Dr. Leithart’s ecumenical proposals were theologically problematic.

Derek Rishmawy made the important point that if we go for a lowest-common-denominator ecumenism in order to get together with Rome or Constantinople, we need to figure out what to make of the more liberal post-evangelical crowd.

Finally, there were three other pieces published recently that all talk around these issues in one way or another, so I’m going to include them as well.

First, Bart Gingerich interviewed Brad Littlejohn over at IRD’s blog. The whole interview is worth your time. Over at Trinity House, one of Dr. Leithart’s colleagues ratcheted up the rhetoric a bit in this piece about Protestant disunion. Alastair wrote about what it means to be a creedal Christian.

Finally–Do note that you can get an audio download of the forum from last week here at Word MP3.

Jake Meador

Jake Meador is the editor-in-chief of Mere Orthodoxy. He is a 2010 graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he studied English and History. He lives in Lincoln, NE with his wife Joie, their daughter Davy Joy, and sons Wendell, Austin, and Ambrose. Jake's writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Commonweal, Christianity Today, Fare Forward, the University Bookman, Books & Culture, First Things, National Review, Front Porch Republic, and The Run of Play and he has written or contributed to several books, including "In Search of the Common Good," "What Are Christians For?" (both with InterVarsity Press), "A Protestant Christendom?" (with Davenant Press), and "Telling the Stories Right" (with the Front Porch Republic Press).

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