Below are some selective quotes from Prof. Dennis M. Swanson, from The Masters Seminary, critiquing New Covenant Theology (NCT) and its adherents. Prof. Swanson accurately states, NCT . . .
” . . . is firmly within the Evangelical Tradition . . . they love the Scripture, they believe in inerrancy, they love the Lord Jesus Christ, they teach justification by faith, they teach . . . many of the things we would affirm here. “
“. . . is characterised by a diligent and sincere effort to understand and apply the Scripture consistently . . . it is clear that these are folks who honour the word of God and want to understand it and they want to apply it rightly to their lives and to the lives of the people they are leading”.
” . . . is a movement dedicated to the local church. It is a local church movement. It is a group that is probably more concerned about their local churches than they are even propagating their system . . .”
“. . . is a grass roots movement. It is a movement that has come not from the academy, not from noted theological writers, not from seminaries, and filtered down to the churches. It is a movement that has started among Pastors in churches . . .”
“There is also no unified eschatology among New Covenant Theologians. In New Covenant Theology premillennialism, postmillennialism and amillennialism are all represented . . . the only unanimity they have in their eschatology is . . . they are unified in rejecting a future for the nation of Israel as a distinct entity . . . What they have done with eschatology is simply render it unimportant . . . Corporate eschatology, in relation to the millennium, rapture, and so on, those kinds of questions are just not important (to them). . . it is simply not important. It is a non-issue. It is nothing to get bothered about. It is a minor and unimportant issue in terms of studies.”
“It is clear this movement does represent an honest attempt to examine the Scripture and apply it to the believer. Their ministries are geared around the local church, helping individual believers, evangelism . . . they are very, very strong in Bible study.”
And my personal favourites:
“Perhaps most importantly . . . New Covenant Theology is a theology of the Internet. . . absent the internet, and absent the connectivity of people being able to have web pages and email and communicate back and forth, it is likely that New Covenant Theology simply would not exist. It would exist in individual minds and individual churches scattered who never connect.” (Yes!!)
“All of their (NCT related) published works have come from their own ministry based publishing efforts.”
“In Depth Studies began as a campus ministry in Arizona state. This is the ministry of Lehrer, Volker and Feather. It is a web based umbrella sort of ministry . . . It is very well done. It is a good site, they take very good care of it, they are very savvy in their use of the internet and their material there is easily accessible and for the most part its free.”
(And well done to Jaime Adams, the webmaster of IDS.org!!).
Thank you Prof Swanson for your fair, kind, encouraging and accurate words regarding NCT in the above quotes.
