Still Crazy

Still Crazy after All These Years?

In the interests of full-disclosure: When I was a RUF campus minister, several men from the ministry went to Covenant Theological Seminary, partly through my influence.  The two most influential professors from my seminary days were teaching there, Palmer Robertson as regular faculty and Morton Smith as visiting professor. The seminary n those days was distinguished by the exemplary hospitality it extended to visitors which impressed me much. I thought highly of Drs. Will Barker, George Knight, and Robert Reymond.  Once during Paul Kooistra's early presidency I was invited to speak in chapel for two days during which Bryan Chapell was in attendance. Later, when I was a senior minister in Pittsburgh, I found a man graduating from the seminary to recommend as an Associate, and he became a great partner in ministry. Dr. Bryan Chapell spoke for a weekend conference for us in Pittsburgh. One of the elders became a Board member. In more recent years with the rise of the PPLN my relationship with the seminary became less happy. The last substantive communication I had from the current President, soon to be Chancellor, more than 10 years ago now, was a letter of rebuke.

My only dealings with Dr. Jack Collins were when we both served on the PCA Creation Study Committee. (As it turned out the purpose I served on the Committee was to allow each other member to go home after each meeting, thinking to himself, "There is a least one dumber person than I on that Committee.") I found him to be a Christian man, a thoughtful and pleasant person, whose view I had trouble wrapping my brain around and who, I thought, was somewhat naive about some political dynamics that occurred from time to time. 

The only communication I recall ever having with Tim Keller is an email I received from him after the old PCANews published a piece by me analyzing the PCA along the lines of Old School - New School, Old Side - New Side. He thought I was wrong.

All I know about the the Bayly boys is that the are self-professed to be out of their minds. And they have very definite ideas about manly men and girly girls.

With all this disclosure out of the way, I can now note a recent blog post*  by one the boys. After registering his pleasure at the defeat of Senator Richard Lugar in the Indiana senatorial primary (not manly enough - or, too much a gentleman), he went on   to comment on the transition at the Seminary. He expressed his hope that the interim President would avail himself of the opportunity to fire Professor Collins. He went on to speculate that with the departures of Drs. Chapell and Collins about one-third of the needed reform at the Seminary would be accomplished. It would be interesting to know what the other two-thirds of the reform will require. He closed by calling us to prayer that there would be a new President humble and fearing God sufficiently to cut off the seminary's promotion of Tim Keller and to fire two or three more faculty members. 

Regarding Professor Collins, he suggested that he could move to McCormick Theological Seminary. (More disclosure: the most compassionate and must fun seminary professor I had, Al Freundt, got his D.Min there.) He thought Jack's "shilling for evolution" would fit in perfectly there. One can imagine what might be said about B.B. Warfield, perhaps the staunchest defender of Biblical inerrancy in the history of the church: "One hopes that a new President of Princeton will fire Professor Warfield, that Darwinist. Perhaps he could move to Germany and continue his shilling for evolution there." We could go on to speak of Charles, A.A. and Caspar Wistar Hodge, of Machen, and a host of other witnesses of whom the world is not worthy.

Willie and Waylon sang, "I've always been crazy but it's kept me from going insane." One wonders...

* http://www.baylyblog.com/