The CREC Scholastic? Part I: Introduction
In which I begin to account for my own idiosyncrasies and why I think they make some degree of sense
For about two years now, I have been in the CREC and enjoying it rather well. Depending on where you’re coming from, this may raise different questions. For some people, it’s “Wait, what’s the CREC?” For others, it’s “Why somewhere that’s so invested in baptizing babies?” However, for many of my more traditionally Reformed friends and associates, the question is often more, “Why the CREC when there are less idiosyncratic Reformed denominations to choose from?”
All of these, but especially the last, are fair questions in their way. It is with the last that I am most particularly interested when it comes to giving some account for myself. After all, I am neither the most abrasive rhetorician in the world nor the most inclined to do new things with theology. I pay fairly little attention to Doug Wilson and Canon Press, and my method for doing theology is, per the title of this post, more immediately akin to medieval and early modern scholasticism than to the rather poetic and perhaps associational approach often associated with the “Federal Vision” and the CREC. So how did I, a relatively traditional and status quo-loving autistic logic-chopper, end up comfortably among people often more likely to write verses than syllogisms, and more likely to cry “Connections!” than “Distinguo,” besides some famously controversial doctrinal distinctives?1
To answer this question most effectively (as much to myself as to anyone else), I think it will be most useful to describe my approaches to each of what my own pastor has identified as CREC distinctives: postmillennialism, presuppositionalism, and paedocommunion.2 As I originally began working on this account of myself, I tried to shove explanations of my history and views on all these things together into one post. This resulted in a behemoth. So, instead, over the next few posts I intend to get into each one of them and then conclude the series with a rough outline of what I might, if my goal were primarily to raise questions and bait engagement, call my “2K FV ecclesiology,” as this takes such a central place in my approach to many other issues.3
Here as in many places I should note how much this self-accounting is almost an attempt to discharge debts to honor the many people who have formed me both intellectually and spiritually. I would not be where I am without the sincere piety and moral clarity from by Southern Baptist parents, pastor, and other brethren as a child, the introduction to Reformed theology I experienced through such as Piper, C. Michael Patton, etc., the massive influence on my Bible reading that came from such curious figures as N. T. Wright, James Jordan, Peter Leithart, and Andew Perriman, and the expansion of my understanding of many different areas that came from reading Horton, Alastair Roberts, primary sources like Calvin, Steven Wedgeworth and the others at The Calvinist International and eventually Davenant.4 Though it took me a long time to figure out so many things, and I went through a rather tumultuous phase around 18-23, I am very happy and intellectually satisfied with where I am now, however odd it may appear to be something of a “CREC scholastic.”5 With the exception of my more Barthian phase, I really do look back on every period and all these influences with much gratitude and a feeling of obligation to do them all justice for the truths they helped me see and practice. This, along with a purely analytical drive to simply clarify and identify reconcilable propositions, drives me on my synthetic project, which I hope and sincerely believe should honor not only these many influences in my life, but also the God whose Spirit lay behind all the good they imparted to me.
For some reason I feel like this last clause sounds vaguely like AI-generated content, but I promise it’s not.
In the phrase “2K FV ecclesiology,” I use “2K” properly, with specific reference the traditional so-called “Lutheran” two kingdoms theology, and “FV” improperly. But I’ll get into this once we reach that post.
I cannot stress enough how important all the people I have not specifically named in this latter category are. But to do everyone justice would take forever, and I am focusing here on the people who played more initiatory roles in each area.
I will only ever be able to hedge around this title because I am not truly adequately studied in scholastic sources to call myself a scholastic without quotes, but I am at least a scholasticism-appreciator.