As I wrap up this series on my brief time as a student at Knox Theological Seminary (KTS) and on some of the general lessons that can be drawn from the collapse of the school’s reformed witness, it seemed good to mention one last item before closing. In Part 2 of this series I mentioned that the collapse of KTS was in part a tale of missed opportunities. And so it was.
From the time KTS began to consider hiring Warren Gage right up through the events of the late summer and fall of 2007 when Gage and his posse seized control of the school, there were opportunities to expose Gage as the false teacher that he was and expel both him and his unbiblical leaven from the seminary. Regrettably, those in a position to do the job, for one reason or another, allowed these opportunities to pass them by.
Today, I’d like to suggest two reasons why these opportunities were allowed to pass by.
Lack of Discernment and Lack of Courage: The Twin Killers of Christian Institutions
“[T]hose who believe the truth tend to be slow to recognize error and even slower to take the actions necessary to defend the truth. They lack both discernment and courage. This is the crucial matter. Christians cannot help the fact that the sons of this world are more shrewd than they are, or that false brethren do things subtly, surreptitiously, and coercively. But Christians can help how they understand and respond to such doctrinal and ecclesiastical subversion” (John Robbins, Why Heretics Win Battles).
These words, taken form one of my favorite essays by John Robbins, go to the heart of what’s wrong with so many putatively Reformed churches, seminaries and other Christian institutions in our day: A weak and ineffective response by believers to false teaching rooted in both their lack of discernment and their lack of courage.
Gone are the days of the apostle Paul when he hesitated not at all to rebuke Peter to his face over his compromise on the Gospel of justification by belief alone. Gone are the days when Luther, Calvin and Knox thundered against the papal Antichrist. Far too often today, those who claim to stand for the truth do so with halting and timid voices, seeking to make peace with the enemies of Christ exposing them and their false teaching as the Scriptures command.
Dr. Robbins’ essay mentioned above has an interesting, if unintended, connection with the 2007 Gage controversy at KTS. The connection stems from the fact that it is a review of a book titled The Auburn Avenue Theology, Pros and Cons Debating the Federal Vision. The book, containing papers presented at an August 2003 debate between proponents and opponents of the Federal Vision, was edited by then KTS professor E. Calvin Beisner and published by Knox Seminary in 2004.
In the introduction to the book, the editor wrote, “Certainly a spirit of personal respect, charity, and trust prevailed, the men clearly enjoying not only the formal discussion sessions but also their meals, breaks, and three worship services, at which Knox Seminary professor Warren Gage presented his work on the literary and theological unity of the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation and the theme of the loving Father’s provision of a wife for His Son by the transformation of a harlot into a virgin bride. Several participants remarked that his sermons, with their profound insights into Biblical typology, were more than worth the time and trouble of attending even without anything else, and most expressed deep appreciation for his contribution to the meeting. Dr. Gage helped immeasurably by providing for the men a break from their controversy during which they could focus on the glory, grace, and beauty of God, thus being refreshed and strengthened for their work (xii – xiii).
Based on the description given by the editor, what Warren Gage presented to the assembled attendees at the Auburn Avenue Theology debate was his counter-confessional teaching on typology, teaching which later would be re-packaged as the openly heretical John-Revelation Project (JRP) and prominently marketed by KTS. This is the same material that in January 2007 John Robbins rightly described to me as, “Some of the most bizarre stuff I’ve ever seen,” yet the editor presents this material in a positive light, as though somehow God were glorified by Gage’s irrational and counter-confessional nonsense.
But the editor of The Auburn Avenue Theology was not the only member of the KTS faculty to fall under Gage’s spell. Perhaps the biggest promoter of Warren Gage among the faculty members at the school was R. Fowler White, who taught New Testament at KTS. White helped Gage get hired at the school when Dr. Kennedy objected. Further, he helped present the latter’s uniquely unbiblical typology at not one, but two Revelation conferences held at the school, the first in 2004, the second in 2006, and allowed his picture and name to be prominently featured alongside the JRP material on the KTS website, and even used Gage’s material in the New Testament class I had with him.
In White’s defense, he did take lead on the school’s 2007 investigation into Gage, and investigation which temporarily led to Gage’s being suspended from teaching at the school and ultimately to White’s being was fired by KTS for his trouble. But what if White, a man very capable of thinking rationally and acting decisively when he wanted to, instead of spending years carrying water for Gage, had possessed the discernment early on to see Gage’s typology for the obvious nonsense it was and the courage to go after him? Might things have gone differently at KTS? We can’t, of course, know the answer for sure. But it wouldn’t surprise this author if the answer was yes.
One of the things that still shocks me all these years later about the Gage controversy is just how brazen a false teacher he was. He did little or nothing to hide his heresy. In fact, he was so open about it that it was almost as if he were double dog daring anyone at the school to have a go at him. But no one did. Not only was he not seriously challenged until it was too late, but, as mentioned above, his irrational typology was openly supported by members of the KTS faculty and marketed by the school as something to be proud of.
Had the more Biblically minded faculty at KTS shown even the most elementary discernment expected of an ordinary Christian and a little bit of courage to confront Gage with the Bible and with the Westminster Standards, they easily could have run him out of the school long before he was able to damage it beyond repair. But by praising what they immediately should have condemned, and, when they finally got around to taking him on, by mounting a timid and ineffective case against Gage’s obviously unbiblical teaching, the heretics, both Gage and his supporters, won the battle of KTS.
In an email to me in January 2008, John Robbins, wrote, “There are the sharks, and then there are enablers who provide the sea in which they swim.” Here, Robbins was referring to Gage and to those who enabled him to carry out his false teaching and successful coup at KTS. The larger application for us as Christians is to pray that God would grant us discernment to spot false teaching when it arises and the courage to address it immediately. If men of great ability and erudition can be fooled into promoting nonsense, let none of us be arrogant to believe that, apart from God’s grace, he is immune to this failing.
Summary and Conclusion
In this series, I’ve looked at some of the specific events that shaped my experience at KTS and attempted to draw out from them some general points of application for Christians faced with difficult situations, in particular difficult doctrinal situations of the sort that we often face in the course of our Christian walk.
In my original post in this series, I commented that God is faithful, oftentimes in ways that we don’t anticipate when faced with challenges to our faith. In my case, I dropped out of seminary after one semester after several years of agonizing over the decision. Leaving seminary so soon after I started was, in some ways, a huge disappointment to me. I thought I was going to seminary to study for the ministry, but God had different plans. And, I’m happy to say, he has richly rewarded me, even if it has been in ways that I did not anticipate when I made the decision to go to KTS.
Second, Roman Catholic trained professors at Protestant schools are a real threat to the integrity of these institutions. Warren Gage, for example, took his doctorate from the Roman Catholic University of Dallas. It is an enormous betrayal of the Lord Jesus Christ for Reformed, Protestant schools to hire men trained by the Romanists, yet this is common practice among Protestant institutions of hirer learning today. By their hiring Romanist trained professors, these schools sow the wind and will reap, if they have not already done so, the whirlwind.
Third, in hindsight it becomes clear that disasters such as what occurred at KTS do not take place overnight. It took a series of bad decisions over a period of six years, stretching from his 2001 hiring to the collapse of his opponents case against him in the fall of 2007, to bring down KTS. During that period, had people in positions of power made the right decision instead of the wrong one, the entire 2007 controversy could have been avoided. The collapse of KTS is a tale of missed opportunities. The lesson here is when God provides you with an opportunity to stand for what it right, take it.
In a dispute, the more consistent party will prevail, the less consistent will lose. This is the fourth lesson from the sorry tale of KTS. Strange as it may sound, Gage, whose irrational theology was based on poetic imagination and intuition, actually was more consistent with his irrationalism than his opponents were, men who claimed to value logic and reason, in their thinking. Gage was a bulldog in pushing his imaginative typology, while his opponents, on the other hand, merely mumbled that he went too far, and actually partially agreed with him that type / antitype relationships can too be discerned through speculative means. When Gage accused his opponents of pushing Marsh’s Dictum – Marsh’s Dictum is named after 19th century Anglican Bishop Herbert Marsh who held that type / antitype relationships can be determined by the express statements of Scripture only – they fled from the charge the way Superman would flee the sight of Kryptonite. In doing so, they forsook their own mercy and were defeated by the more consistently irrational Gage. Not only did Gage’s opponents lose, they deserved to lose. The lesson here for Christians is, when challenged, take your stand on logical, propositional revelation of the Scriptures without wavering. Doing so does not guarantee you’ll win the battle, but you will not be put to shame the way Gage’s opponents were.
Fifth, unsound Eschatology is a significant threat to the Reformed church. Time was when even the least educated Christian knew the office of the papacy was the great Antichrist spoken of by the apostle John, Today, no one, not even the most learned Christian, seems to have a clue about the identity of the man of sin or Mystery Babylon. The Jesuits have done their jobs well to the point that even most Bible believing Christians seem to think that Antichrist is already come and gone – this is the system known as Preterism developed by the Jesuit scholar Luis do Alcazar – or is to come in the future- this is the Eschatological system known as Futurism, which was developed by Jesuit scholar Francisco Ribera. Very few Protestant devotees of either system are aware that they are merely repeating Jesuit propaganda developed during the Counter-Reformation and designed to take the heat of the real Antichrist (the office of the papacy) and the Babylonian Harlot which reigns over the kings of the earth (the Roman Church-State). If Protestants ever hope to effectively battle Rome, it is imperative that they re-learn when their spiritual forebears once knew about Eschatology.
Sixth, we learned that cover ups are not the sole province of crooked politicians, but this sinful practice can be found in the Church of Christ as well. During the Gage controversy in the fall of 2007, the school claimed to want, “clarity of communication in all directions,” but the practice of school officials was anything but open. “Move along, folks, nothing to see here,” was their mantra. When Dr. E. Calvin Beisner actually did provide clarity of communication in an email send to board members Ron Siegnethaler and Dan Smith, and to all the students at KTS, he quickly found himself in need of a new job. This pattern of behavior, cover up is the name of the game, remained unchanged right up to the time of Gage’s retirement from the school at the end of the spring semester in 2014. In an email sent out by the school, students were told to, “squelch any rumors that you might hear or have heard,” about the reasons related to Gage’s leaving KTS. The Westminster Larger Catechism states tells us that among the sins forbidden by the ninth commandment are the, “hiding, excusing, or extenuating of sins, when called to a free confession.” The board of KTS sinned against the students of the school by their attempt to cover up of the Gage affair in 2007, and it is the opinion of this author that the school likely once again sinned against the students by attempting to make them part of a second cover up in 2014.
Seventh, discernment and courage are two hallmarks of the Christian soldier, but these traits are in short supply today. It is my contention that had the more biblically minded faculty members – and I would also add board members – not allowed themselves to be taken in by the smooth talking Gage, KTS would be a different and a better place today. But their lack of discernment, and perhaps also their lack of courage also, allowed Gage’s leaven to fester in the school until it had leavened the whole KTS lump. The events at KTS stand as a sober warning about what can happen when Christians, especially those in teaching positions, fail to play the man. Also, if learned men such as those on the KTS faculty can be fooled or scared into going along with nonsense, none of the rest of us are immune from this failing. We must pray that God grant us both the discernment not to be fooled and the courage to take effective action when heretics threaten the church.
I take it, from your remarks, that you would not consider Gage a Christian. Is this a fair inference?
In my opinion he is not.
What do you think he believed that would show him to be unfaithful to the gospel?
If you don’t know from reading my posts, I doubt there’s anything I can say that would convince you.
A sobering history Steve.
Too often the enemies of the truth face little to no opposition or the weapons used against them are worldly. As afar as I can figure out the only weapons we have are prayer and truth, for what we are attacking are lies. It would seem that the faculty and Presbytery involved in this case were undiscerning for too long as to the lies being told.
That is exactly right. On top of all that, as far as I’m aware, there was never any appeal made in this case beyond the session of Coral Ridge PC. For whatever reason, Gage’s opponents never appealed to Presbytery.
I read all your posts, but from what I’ve seen, your issue with him is his disparagement of logic in favor of speculative typology and intuition. While that may be a fair criticism so far as it goes, unless the speculations themselves are anti-gospel, then the problem, it seems, is more so with methodology than with the contents of the gospel. You even wrote that he intended to vindicate Reformed soteriology against Rome. Clark wrote Arminians are saved. If you agree with him there, how much more a man who sincerely believes reformed theology? If he goes about it wrong, that’s a matter for correction, not damnation. You don’t really think all Christians must agree with Marsh’s Dictum or the character of the Anti-Christ?
I don’t know either of you gentlemen, but from an outsider’s perspective, you seem to have an ax to grind.
Yes, Ryan. Every single Christian must agree with Marsh or he’s eternally damned :-;
Lol 🙂
I’m glad you agree, but then I don’t know why you wouldn’t consider Gage a Christian. He affirms sola fide and penal substitution and other reformed doctrines, no?
Warren Gave affirmed the whole WCF and then spent all his time in class stacking it. His affirmations are worthless.
Whether you agree with how he arrives at these conclusions or not, they are clearly Reformed: sola gratia, sola fide, penal substitution, the doctrines of grace, etc. They are also in accordance with the WCF:
“The pattern of the believer’s redemption, prefigured in the original creation out of chaos, militates against any synergistic theory of justification. In both creation and redemption the elements are the same. We begin with darkness. The Spirit moves. The Word is spoken. The Light shines into darkness. Creation is ex nihilo, just as redemption is sola gratia.”
Gage, W. A. (2010). Essays in Biblical Theology. Fort Lauderdale, FL: Warren A. Gage.
Rather than understanding the bicovenantalism of Hagar and Sarah as merely anticipating the covenants of works and promise, it seems probable that in the providence of redemptive history Hagar and Sarah are likewise explicating the covenants of works and promise first announced to Adam in the garden (Gen 2:16–17 and 3:15). This argument, although inescapably typological, appears to complete Paul’s understanding of the twin axes of works and promise (law and grace) that run right through the Scriptures. Paul’s syncritical juxtaposition of works and promise in the figures of the two women Hagar and Sarah, who represent the Jerusalem below and the Jerusalem above, is echoed in the Johannine syncritical comparison of Lady Babylon and Lady Jerusalem.
Gage, W. A. (2010). Theological Poetics: Typology, Symbol and the Christ. Fort Lauderdale, FL: Warren A. Gage.
Judah offered to take upon himself the punishment of enslavement in order to release his brother Benjamin, who was condemned by the cup discovered in his possession, the cup whose possession merited death (Gen 44:1–9, 33). Jesus, however, offered a greater deliverance, for He actually drank the cup in order to release his brothers from their sentence of eternal death (John 18:11).
Gage, W. A. (2010). Essays in Biblical Theology. Fort Lauderdale, FL: Warren A. Gage.
The most popular propositional statement of traditional Calvinism is set forth in the TULIP acrostic. These five doctrines are 1) total depravity, 2) unconditional election, 3) limited atonement, 4) irresistible grace, and 5) perseverance of the saints. Theologically this formula views salvation entirely from the perspective of mankind. We begin being dead in sins (total depravity) and end as the saved (perseverance of the saints). What differentiates the saved from the unsaved is the intervention of the triune God. The Father unconditionally chooses, the Son atones for those particularly chosen by the Father, and the Spirit irresistibly draws those chosen and redeemed to their salvific destiny. While these several affirmations are certainly scriptural, they are inadequate in one major respect, and sorely in need of correction. The salvation of the believer does not begin with the total depravity of man but with the unconditional election of Father God. Such is the sequence required by the pattern of the ancient Near Eastern wedding. This sequential difference is crucial. By beginning our understanding of salvation with total depravity we ground that salvation upon the desperate need of a fallen humanity. But salvation is not grounded in the need of man. Rather, it is grounded in the unconditioned and elective choice by God the Father of a bride for His Son. We are saved not because of God’s pity, however so wonderful His pity toward the desperately lost may be. We are saved rather out of the passion of His elective choice. The church was chosen for Christ as the gift of the Father. It is the passion of the Son more than the pity of the Son that causes Him to rescue His bride from sin and death. It was for the joy set before Him of being eternally with His beloved that Jesus suffered the death of the cross, despising the shame (Heb 12:2). A new Reformation will come when the church recaptures a deep awareness of the joy that Jesus, the True Isaac, takes in her as His beloved bride, seeing her as both beautiful and virginal, as the true Rebekah. The passion of Jesus, more even than His pity, is the wellspring of the believer’s everlasting joy.
Gage, W. A. (2010). Theological Poetics: Typology, Symbol and the Christ. Fort Lauderdale, FL: Warren A. Gage.
I have another opinion for you: regardless of what I say, you won’t listen. Feel free to have the last word.
If you told me he denied the gospel in your class, I’d be more inclined to think you have a point, yes.
Gage has been gone from KTS for over four years. This is history.
Yes, it is history.
This iss a great post
Thanks, Ethan.