Besides the fact that he's blatantly Arminian, does anyone have any comments on the rest of his doctrine or the quality of his preaching? I have friends who have been listening to Roger's broadcast to supplement their very shallow church, and I wanted to find out more about him.
The only thing more I can tell you about Rogers is that he talks very adamantly against Calvinism. This is not always the case with Arminian SB preachers. One of the things I did notice about his preaching however is that he has a very engaging style, but that makes him all the more dangerous.
While Adrian is an Arminian (despite partnerships with Al Mohler and other Reformed Baptists), he graduated from Luther Rice Seminary and occasionally teaches preaching at the Stephen Olford Preaching Center near his church (last I remember 27,000 members on Sunday mornings at Bellevue, but that was a while back). He has authored several books and is a very gifted speaker (i.e. he knows how to make a powerful point) and you can find some of his material at Love Worth Fnding.
Last edited by J_Edwards; Mon Mar 14, 200510:35 AM.
When it comes to preaching, besides being a good speaker, is his content fairly solid (i.e. expository)? (Besides blowing it on the Doctrines of Grace, of course. I listened to 2.5 hours of old Dividing Line broadcasts yesterday when James White was critiquing some of Roger's material on Romans 8 & 9, which Rogers of course warped and twisted to match his tradition.)
I never considered his preaching/teaching to be solid. Yet, when I was a younger and a less informed believer, I thought he was a great exhorter in the faith. He actually came to our church in Jonesboro AR when I was in college and did a emotionally charged message on true hypocrisy, ie, a person who walked the aisle and so forth, but is not geninunely saved. It was akin to the Lordship stuff John MacArthur was defending at that time.
Later, when I had matured more in the scripture, I had occasion to hear him preach at Grace at some Word Publishing arranged conference. It was terrible. All illustrations, no substance from the text. Probably the only ones who actually taught the Bible and stayed relevant to the theme of the conference (the authority of scripture) was MacArthur and Stephen Olford.
A buddy of mine I know from seminary attended Rogers's church for many years. He had positive things to say about the overall congregation and so forth. However, in the mid-90s, several college kids became calvinistic in their theology. They were promoting the Founders and various Reformed writings. I want to say several of the college staff also became Calvinistic and were teaching the doctrines of Grace from the college pulpit. Rogers became alarmed and basically went on his personal witch hunt to smoke out all the Calvinists causing division in his Church. One of the results was an address he gave to the overall college department in which he, and his army of strawmen, outlined Calvinism and explained why it is unbiblical and he is by no means "calvinistic." He hurled the typical illogical argumentation about reading every book in print on Calvinism (why is this assertion so often raised by anti-calvinists?), that he wanted to preach the Bible, and basically equated historic Calvinism with hypercalvinism.
The transcript of the talk use to be on-line with comments by one of the ousted Calvinistic college students who attended the meeting. It has since been taken down at Roger's request.
Anyhow, I can't deny the impact Roger's has had in Memphis and there are many positive things I can say about his overall ministry, but on the other hand, I can't say I am sorry to see him go, especially in light of his recent anti-Calvinistic crusades.
Fred
"Ah, sitting - the great leveler of men. From the mightest of pharaohs to the lowest of peasants, who doesn't enjoy a good sit?" M. Burns
fredman said: A buddy of mine I know from seminary attended Rogers's church for many years. He had positive things to say about the overall congregation and so forth. However, in the mid-90s, several college kids became calvinistic in their theology. They were promoting the Founders and various Reformed writings. I want to say several of the college staff also became Calvinistic and were teaching the doctrines of Grace from the college pulpit. Rogers became alarmed and basically went on his personal witch hunt to smoke out all the Calvinists causing division in his Church. One of the results was an address he gave to the overall college department in which he, and his army of strawmen, outlined Calvinism and explained why it is unbiblical and he is by no means "calvinistic." He hurled the typical illogical argumentation about reading every book in print on Calvinism (why is this assertion so often raised by anti-calvinists?), that he wanted to preach the Bible, and basically equated historic Calvinism with hypercalvinism.
The transcript of the talk use to be on-line with comments by one of the ousted Calvinistic college students who attended the meeting. It has since been taken down at Roger's request.
If this is what I think it is, it is still around as hardcopy. Also this rebuttal was done by a RUF minister who had no connection to Bellevue.
As I recall a couple of the points:
1) Total Depravity means you are as bad as you can be.
2) Perserverance of the Saint means you can lose your salvation. Something along the lines that you can walk the aisle and live a holy life but then deny Chirst on your deathbed and lose it all.
If this is what I think it is, it is still around as hardcopy. Also this rebuttal was done by a RUF minister who had no connection to Bellevue.
(Fred) I remember that the critique was written up by a RUF guy, but from what my friend was telling me, I took it that he was either one of the college students under the ban, or he was at least involved with several of the Calvinistic students. It has been a while since my friend told me about all this. At any rate, it was a fun little critique to read. I would have to dig in my files to find out the author, but I remember emailing him to get a hardcopy after the online version disappeared.
Fred
"Ah, sitting - the great leveler of men. From the mightest of pharaohs to the lowest of peasants, who doesn't enjoy a good sit?" M. Burns
In 78 or 79 when he was president of the SBC, he said that God did not hear the prayers of Jews. He really got a lot of flack for that especially from Jewish Organizations.
Well, I'm pretty sure that a Christian that attends another church in Memphis told us in one of the E-mail Lists I'm in a couple of years ago, that there were some Elders at Bellevue that were calvinistic. Whether they are still there, I don't know. Soli Deo Gloria...