Alien DNA

It's amusing to see urban legends in the making. The tactic is to create a damaging narrative of the opposition, and hope that catches on. Since, moreover, you're playing to a sympathetic audience, they are likely to assume the worst about the opposition. So the pejorative memes and urban legends stick. 

On example is the "toxic" environment meme. Under the new regime, WTS has a "toxic environment." I've seen several critics try to popularize that part of the new narrative. And there are other plot devices in the WTS narrative:  

https://www.facebook.com/chris.fantuzzo?fref=nf

Fantuzzo Chris Emily Hi Linda, Yes, I think alumni who are using this phrase have in mind their training under 80s-90s faculty like Dillard and Longman, Silva, Conn, Gaffin and Ferguson (and certain students of theirs) before the inauguration of Peter Lillback in 2005. It appears to many that the new Westminster admin. and board is rolling the clock back before Dillard, utilizes Machiavellian tactics to achieve its ends, and has redefined WTS so narrowly and militantly that it has become an embarrassment to serious Christian scholarship.September 30 at 7:23pm · 1

I understand that Fantuzzo is bitter about his experience. And I'm certainly open to the possibility that he was treated shabbily. Given mixed signals. Hung out to dry.

In addition, it does indeed appear to me, as an outside observer, that the current regime is turning the clock back to before Dillard. And I'm glad they are resetting the clock–after the doctrinal power outage. 

Is Fantuzzo saying the exegetical work of Duguid, Beale, and Poythress is an embarrassment to serious Christian scholarship? 

Fantuzzo Chris Emily Linda, I'm indebted to a friend for the following way to see the movement at WTS. Early Westminster was all about authority/inerrancy (faculty symposium called Scripture and Confession). Middle Westminster was all about interpretation/hermeneutics (with earlier contributions from Kline and Murray), while building on earlier interests in authority (the 80s faculty symposium was called Inerrancy and Hermeneutic). New Westminster has returned to a focus on authority, sadly without much reflection on what was learned about interpretation during the middle Westminster years. This can be seen in the Confession regulating document "Affirmations and Denials," and in recent faculty publications, esp. by Lillback, Garner, and Beale, which many alumni think reveal an alien (DTS) DNA. Only a few of the current faculty and Lillback board members were actually trained at middle WTS. And for many alumni who were trained during its salutary middle period, what was most positive and constructive about it has died with Peter Lillback's presidency and must be sought elsewhere.October 1 at 5:16am

There are some stubborn fact that get in the way of Fantuzzo's relative chronology. Take the false dichotomy between authority/inerrancy and interpretation/hermeneutics. E. J. Young represents "Early Westminster." And he was certainly strong on inerrancy. Yet he also wrote major commentaries on Isaiah and Daniel, as well as a devotional commentary on Ps 139. 

Murray represents "Early Westminster." Yet his systematic theology was an exercise in exegetical theology. 

Conversely, O. Palmer Robertson represents "MIddle Westminster." The "salutary" period. He taught there during the 70s. Yet he's a critic of Dillard/Longman. So Fantuzzo's very schematic version of Westminster history suffers from too many serious anachronisms. 

I will address the "alien DNA" meme in a moment. 

But this also tells us something about why Westminster is changing in the direction it is hermeneutically. Bruce, Peter and Greg and others (notice that this celebration is being co-sponsored by others from Dallas) are all part of a group that were associated with Dallas seminary forty or so years ago (Dave Garner also has a DTS background).Their spiritual leader was S. Lewis Johnson of Believers Chapel. This group departed from their DTS background by rejecting dispensationalism, but they maintained a more literalist understanding of interpretation which includes a commitment to meaning found in the conscious intention of the human author.Without question, this theology stands behind their rejection of Christotelic and affirmation of something that they call a Christomorphic reading of the New Testament use of the Old Testament. 

https://www.facebook.com/tremper.longman/posts/830513933634569

Could it be, as some of us who support Dr. Green have recently surmised, that the dispensational background of some of the key players at WTS is significant here? Of course, I’m not at all saying that Professors Beale, Lillback, and Garner (all of whom have degrees from Dallas Theological Seminary) are dispensationalists. Far from it. But with dispensational literalism comes a rather narrow grammatical-historical hermeneutic, and with that a focus on the human author’s intent as decisive for interpretation that has been influential far beyond the confines of dispensationalism itself. Even when people leave dispensationalism proper they often retain that hermeneutical orientation.I sense that, in drawing our attention to the Believers’ Chapel connection, Dr. Longman is on to something quite important here.  I can easily imagine how people with that grammatical-historical bias who came to WTS with its conviction that Christ is pervasively present in the OT, and who were strongly opposed to the view of the NT’s use of the OT presented in Peter Enns’ Inspiration and Incarnation, would think it necessary to say that the OT writers had those NT Christological ideas in mind.  But these imported hermeneutical ideas simply don’t sit well with the Old Princeton heritage of WTS. 

https://theecclesialcalvinist.wordpress.com/2014/09/30/dallas-and-the-dutchman-trying-to-make-sense-of-the-christotelic-controversy/

Fantuzzo, Evans, and Longman are all recasting the issue in terms of "alien DNA." The rejection of the christotelic hermeneutic is driven by the "literalism" of their residual dispensational hermeneutic. And that "simply don’t sit well with the Old Princeton heritage of WTS."

Unfortunately, that allegation has to cut and tailor the facts to fit the theory:

i) Poythress, Duguid, and Trueman don't have a DTS background. I notice that Fantuzzo, Evans, and Longman simply ignore that conspicuous piece of counterevidence.

ii) But even on its own terms, dispensational DNA was part of the original gene pool of Westminster. Allan MacRae was one of the founding faculty members of WTS. Yet he was an ardent premillennialist. Indeed, he later became an editor of the The New Scofield Reference Bible. Here's a sample of his approach to prophecy:

http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/otesources/27-daniel/macrae_daniel_text_audio/macrae_daniel_lecture10.pdf

Presumably, Machen was aware of MacRae's eschatological outlook. Yet he hired him anyway, and promoted him after Wilson's death. 

Beale's amil hermeneutic is far less dispensational than MacRae's premil hermeneutic. 

iii) Compare Dillard/Longman's OT introduction to E. J. Young's OT introduction, and ask yourself which one doesn't sit well with the Old Princeton heritage of WTS. 

iv) In addition, is Evans claiming that Old Princeton espoused a christotelic hermeneutic? The leading exegetes of Old Principle were Charles Hodge, J. A. Alexander, and Geerhardus Vos. Is it Evans' contention that they utilize a distinctively christotlic hermeneutic? Is so, I'd like to seem him present the documentation.