Wise Words from Wendell Kempton

In the most recent issue of The Baptist Bulletin (March/April 2008) I noticed a two-page memorial tribute about Wendell Kempton, the President Emeritus of ABWE, who died January 6, 2008. I probably would have paid no attention if I had not received earlier this year an e-mail sent out by Larry Smith, with whom I worked for a couple of years in the 1990s at Heritage Baptist College and Seminary. Until I received Larry’s e-mail I do not believe I knew the name of Dr. Kempton. I was struck by one paragraph in particular about Dr. Kempton. Larry wrote this about him:

“I was in my office in Santiago, Chile beginning our second term of missionary service when I learned that our new president of ABWE was a man named Wendell Kempton. I did not know him or anything about him. I asked a missionary colleague who he was and he replied, “We call him Wendy—he’s a coach.”

“…As time passed, I was privileged to have Dr. Kempton “coach” me. I remember sitting in the airport in Santiago, Chile and listening intently to him as he coached me with words of wisdom on how to become a better missionary. As I approach retirement, I remember him telling me that “it is more important how you leave an organization than how you entered”.”

Those are wise words indeed.

Liam Goligher Lectures

This past Saturday morning, The Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, now located at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (www.sbts.edu) , teamed up with Toronto Baptist Seminary (www.tbs.edu ) to present a mini-conference of two lectures by Dr Liam Goligher of Duke Street Church in Richmond-on-Thames, London (see www.dukestreetchurch.co.uk ). This conference had been planned before the move of the Andrew Fuller Center to Louisville, but it is hoped that the Center will be able to hold a similar event annually in southern Ontario. Dr Goligher superbly and succinctly analyzed the Emergent Church in his first lecture and then looked at the deviations from a solid biblical focus on penal, substitutionary atonement in his second talk. Coming from a position Goligher described as “Catholic [that is rooted in the patristic era], Protestant, Reformed, and Evangelical,” he examined Emergent thinking in relation to Scripture, humanity, Christ, salvation, ethics, and Christian orthodoxy. He urged his hearers that while we must be humble in the way we present the truth, we should not “be humble about the truth” itself. Truth can be known—though obviously not all the truth about any given topic. Insightfully he suggested that the opposite of humility today for many people—even Christians—is not pride, but conviction.

Goligher’s second lecture looked at the doctrine of the cross in the New and Old Testaments. He ably responded to Steve Chalke’s recent argument that viewing the cross as God’s judgment on sin is simply cosmic child abuse and rightly pointed out that the charge is not a new one. Goligher powerfully argued that the cross achieves propitiation, reconciliation, redemption, and victory over evil.

It was a morning well spent. We hope, DV, to have another set of lectures next year at roughly the same time. On that occasion, Dr Stephen Wellum of Southern will be with us lecturing on the person of Christ. Plan on joining us!

For another report of the lectures by Dr Goligher, see Kirk Wellum: Post Lecture Thoughts.

The audio of Dr Goligher's lectures can be found here on the Toronto Baptist website:

Lecture #1 The Emergent Church - Reinventing Liberalism

Lecture #2 - Preaching The Cross Today

No Gloating, Please!

I saw The Toronto Star today—its front page, though I rarely look at this particular paper—with its picture of Conrad Black heading to prison and underneath the headline “Lord 18330-424.” Could not help but think of the way the world often gloats over the unhappy circumstances of others. Oh, you say, this man deserved this. Maybe—maybe not. I honestly do not know and I have not followed the details of the trial. It is not so much in the interest of justice that I am blogging.

Rather, I am concerned about the way in which there is something rotten in the human heart that takes comfort in the misery of others.

You doubt this? Then read Fik Meijer, The Gladiators: History’s Most Deadly Sport, trans. Liz Waters (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2007), pages 1-12—very convicting about the depth of human depravity.

Still unconvinced? Then read the account of Alypius, the friend of Augustine, and the time he went to the Roman Colosseum.

And it should not be this way for the followers of the merciful Jesus who prayed for those who put him to death—he did not gloat that one day they would face a Judge much greater than Pilate—namely himself and inherit the trash-heaps and ashen dumps of hell if they had not repented. Who can gloat when all of us--oh yes, no exceptions here; my universalism--deserve just this?

A Sober Assessment of the Present State of Evangelicalism

Talk about Spurgeon redivivus: here is Phil Johnson’s take on the current state of Evangelicalism and he couldn’t be more right! Gospel Lite. Some people, well-meaning, tell us that we should not be so critical, we need to be kind with all of our words and not cause any divisions, lest the true enemies of the Christian faith, namely, the Muslims, come in and take us over! Well, I for one am glad that Martin Luther, with the Muslims at the gates, did not hesitate to criticize the Pope. Or Augustine, with the barbarians about to sweep over the Roman Empire, was not slow to tell those who recognized Pelagius and his error that they were on the high road to hell because of heresy. Or Paul, facing persecution at the hands of the Jews, was not afraid to tell his readers to have nothing to do with theological error.