Today I got a phone call from
Dan Brown. Folks from the old Yahoo e-mail loop will remember Dan. He contributed some really great stuff to the old group. He was calling because I have misrepresented his departure from the old group - a mistake which I hope to correct now, though I cannot make up for the hurt I have likely caused him. To explain:
In our phone conversation today,
Dan refuted my attempts to label him as an advocate for "Federal Vision / Auburn Avenue" theology. I was very glad to hear it, because in the many months
since he left the old e-mail group, I have concluded that it is a heretical form of
hypercovenantalism and represents church-administered "salvation by sacrament." But
at the time that he and I were moderating the old group, we were both open to it and exploring it. Long sympathetic to the forbidden practice of paedocommunion in the PCA, I was drawn to FV's highly covenantal view of family and church, and Dan introduced me to the teaching (before it became so controversial in our denomination and several others).
I was just coming to my present view of the doctrine when Dan left, and because we didn't agree at the time about the FV/AA teachings, I took his departure as a blessing and his sympathy for the teachings as heretical. As is typical for me, I swung widely to the opposite pole like a pendulum in search of a balaance but always overshooting it. I dismissed my brother as a heretic when I should have kept in touch, contending for the truth from the Scriptures. But I didn't do that. I did the easy thing instead of the proper thing.
So here, long overdue, I offer my public apology to Dan Brown - still an elder in good standing of a church in good standing in a presbytery in good standing with the PCA, whose official position on the FV/AA theology is posted
here.
Soli Deo Gloria,
Robin
