Earlier this fall, Austin Seminary (PCUSA) held a colloquium entitled “Joining and Being Church: What’s Not Negotiable?” The event was provoked by the reception into membership at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin of Robert Jensen, a University of Texas journalism professor who also happens to be an atheist. The Presbyterian Outlook has provided more details about this gathering:
At the end of the presentations, John Judson, chairman of the Committee on Ministry for Mission Presbytery introduced panelists for a discussion: Larry Coulter, pastor of Shepherd of the Hills Church, Austin Texas; Marsha Brown, pastor of First Church, Copperas Cove, Texas; and Chris Harrison, pastor of First Church of Giddings, Texas.
Coulter, who is a member of the Presbytery’s Committee on Ministry, read from a paper written by Robert Jensen entitled, “The Answer Lies in the Conception of Faith that Anyone Can Join the Church.” The paper was presented to a Hindu group in 2006, and was later published in The Hindu Times, The Houston Chronicle, and The Chicago Tribune.
Please note: the person who put that illiterate title on his paper is a journalism professor. I leave it up to the reader to decide what that says about the state of journalism in America.
About the paper, Coulter said, “Dr. Jensen’s paper is a provocative paper that I found very engaging. He is a man who loves to make people think, and he has done that for our presbytery.” Jensen’s opening statement said that he does not believe in God, Jesus Christ as God’s son, or that heaven exists, but he raises the question of what the term “Christian” means. He called himself “a secular Christian” and “Christian atheist.”
Clearly Jensen is a journalism professor who has an adversary relationship with the English language. The expression “Christian atheist” is oxymoronic if the terms mean anything. Of course, Jensen can call himself a slab of prime rib if he wants, but when words are totally detached from any meaning, communication becomes impossible. And when communication becomes impossible, it isn’t just the church that has a problem. I’d have to say that journalism professors become completely expendable under those circumstances. As for making the presbytery think, all I can say is that if they had to think about the matter of whether a professed atheist should be allowed to join a Christian church for more than about thirty seconds, then the presbytery has probably also become expendable.
[Austin Seminary academic dean Michael] Jinkins followed Coulter, and toward the end of his presentation, he said, “I trust the faith of Jesus Christ, that is, I trust the faith that Christ has on our behalf as heavenly High Priest, far more than I trust the faith any of us have in Christ. … I am, thus, worried about placing so much emphasis on cognitive affirmation of propositions, rather than simply trusting in a personal God who is hidden in his revelation, and about whom it is very difficult, if not impossible, to make any unequivocal statements.”
Is it really necessary to point out that Jensen doesn’t recognize the existence of a personal God, and therefore doesn’t trust in Him? Do people like Jinkins even listen to themselves when they speak?
Jinkins presents a trope that has become universal among those who are seeking to destroy any notion of theological orthodoxy: God is “hidden,” and we can’t make any “unequivocal” statements about Him. It is certainly true that we don’t know, can’t know, God in His fullness. Our finitude is such that it simply can’t grasp infinity. That, however, is a very different matter from saying that we can’t know anything about God. In fact, the very purpose of “revelation” was to reveal, to pull back the curtain, as it were, to enable us to grasp in our limited way what He desired us to know of Himself. That’s necessary to the trust that Jinkins says we’re called upon to exercise–one doesn’t trust another person whom one knows absolutely nothing about. God revealed Himself, pre-eminently in Jesus Christ, that we may trust that He loves us and has acted to save us from the powers of darkness. One either believes that, or one doesn’t. Jensen doesn’t, which is up to him. For us to then say, “well, that’s OK, you don’t have to believe (trust) the revelation that God has given to His people” is a way of saying that you can be part of the Bride of Christ without even acknowledging that you’re getting married.
He cited a conversation he had with a colleague about a member of a congregation who might have a disability such as Down Syndrome. “If belonging to Christian community is dependent on believing, and believing is reduced to the affirmation of particular doctrinal statements, then we may risk losing the genius of the biblical faith in our preoccupation with orthodoxy.”
I’m going to make a big assumption here, which is that a journalism professor has a somewhat more developed capacity for intellectual attainment than a person with Down’s Syndrome. That being the case, he is, as Paul says, “without excuse.” I have no doubt that God makes allowance for what a person can understand, and when a person can fully understand (intellectually) His revelation, and rejects it, He deals with him as he desires. Would that the Mission Presbytery would do the same.
Posted by David Fischler 
