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Tim Keller’s Dreadful Church Planting Practices
Posted by Eric F. Langborgh on 10 Mar 2008 at 10:56 amIt saddens me greatly to say this, but PCA Pastor Tim Keller’s ministry is becoming more and more of a worry, and even a problem, to our Gospel-witness. It saddens me because he has done so much good through his pulpit in New York City.
Bob Mattes, an elder at my church, blogs about Keller’s problematic (to say the least) practices concerning church planting. According to his post, “Partnership in the Gospel?,” Keller is reticent about planting churches for his (and my) own denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America – his own Redeemer Presbyterian local church now boasts five services on a Sunday, at three locations (how this could be considered one “church” is beyond me). Meanwhile, he is actively involved in planting “different kinds of churches” — including those of extremely problematic groups like the Roman Catholics and Pentecostals.
I do not like participating in intradenominational fights, if I can help it. But this is important enough that I must join Bob in asking, “why would a PCA teaching elder provide resources to plant gospel-denying Roman and gospel-extending Pentecostal churches?”
UPDATE: I must confess and repent here of spreading a misunderstanding, though the bulk of my post remains valid. It turns out that Keller’s church does NOT financially support Roman Catholic church plants. Please see this clarification (found in comment dated March 3, 2008 at 1:54 from “mindformissions”). (The clarification is also much more conveniently posted here.) I am sorry. That needfully said, I remain greatly concerned — please see my comment #2 below.
Have you check out http://confessionalouthouse.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/keller-and-the-pca ? Keller wrote to a commenter there and gave this clarification:
Dear Solomon:
Hi! Yes I’ve seen the conversations at a couple of websites about the interview. I hope the following is helpful.
[extra stuff deleted]
3. We have never, ever financed or planted Roman Catholic churches. And we never will nor would want to. I didn’t say that in the interview, of course. But my sentence–that I’ve seen God bring people to Christian faith in prosperity-gospel churches and in Catholic churches–came close to my sentences about how we give money to plant non-Presbyterian churches. If you already are suspicious of me, I suppose you might want to believe we plant Catholic churches, but of course we don’t. And we never would. (I don’t know of anyone who has preached the Luther-Calvin doctrine of justification of faith alone more often over the years. ) We do, however, support churches that are Reformed but charismatic (e.g. like C.J. Mahaney’s churches or other similar churches) and other non-Presbyterian churches that we train and we feel are on the same page with us about gospel theology. There are plenty of Baptist, charismatic, churches etc etc that are similar to us in soteriology–are moving toward us. But we put far, far more money into Presbyterian church plants. That keeps us from on the one hand, being sectarian and thinking God only blesses Presbyterian government, but it means on the other hand we give pride of place to our own tradition, which we love. We’ve always identified as ‘Presbyterian’ in our name, as one example.
Hope this helps…
Bumble,
Thank you for dropping by and commenting. And thank you for providing the clarification. That IS a relief.
I still find it problematic that a pastor and his church in the PCA would “give money to plant non-Presbyterian churches.” This has nothing to do with being sectarian, but by seeking to advance that which one (presumably) finds the purist (not to be confused with infallible) expression of the Gospel. In fact, I would argue that it is actually sectarian to plant churches outside of your own denomination, for you are not adding at all to organizational unity. There are plenty of other avenues to engage in ecumenical dialogue and even cross-denominational ministries without adding to the numbers of other denominations and non-denominational churches, which only further ensures certain fundamental dis-unities.
And other criticisms in article still stand.
Again, I am wont to criticize an elder of the church, but even without actual money going to Roman Catholic church plants, there is much that is quite worrisome here.
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