GAVIN RUMNEY SOLVES THE QUESTION: WHO IS RIGHT? EDWARD FUDGE OR FELIX TAYLOR?
Gavin Rumney, of Ambassador Watch fame added his valuable two cents in a post on JLF that I created over a year and a half ago dealing with the eternal destiny of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Edward Fudge, author of the Fire That Consumes, argued in his daily e-mail called gracemail that Jehovah's Witnesses can be saved. I argued that it cannot be so with my reasoning that scripture makes clear in no uncertain terms that there is NO salvation in a false god and Jesus made it clear in the book of John, saying to the Pharisees, "If you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins!" (JW's stridently oppose Jesus Christ's deity) Edward Fudge responded to my objection that the Pharisee's attitude was a refusal to welcome and embrace Jesus as the Son of God, not an improper metaphysical explanation of His being. Can these views be reconciled? Here's what Gavin Rumney tried to put together:
One variety of legalism teaches that humans can be saved by good works. Another teaches that humans can be saved by good words. Just believe the RIGHT PROPOSITION and thou shalt be saved. God is a trinity, Blood Atonement, Sacred Tradition, The Secret Rapture...
What bumptious nonsense!
While I'd hardly call the JW movement Christian, there are surely Christians among its numbers, just as there were Christians in our midst during even the darkest days of Herb's myopic Evil Empire.
At the end of the day nobody is "saved" by the perfections of their Christology. Did the thief on the cross first have to subscribe to the Westminster Confession? Did the woman at the well need to recite the Nicene Creed? And was the Ethiopian eunuch recalled to Jerusalem after his baptism by Phillip in order to adequately catechized?
In fact I suspect most us - including myself- are held in God's Gracious hands IN SPITE of our arrogantly assumed "knowledge" of such things. Fudge understands grace, a concept that doctrinal legalists have stripped of its spirit and compassion and morphed into a dry and lifeless dogma.
I don't endorse either the "good works" or "good works" version of legalism. But of the two I'd have to say that in our culture the latter is the more pernicious and dangerous. It appeals to the smug, vainglorious, the Pharisees of our day, and is far removed from the spirit and example of Jesus, the friend of tax collectors, "shady ladies" and illiterate fisherman.
And that, I think, Edward Fudge understands.
Gavin
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