Predictable reviews of predictable reviews

It seems that quite a reaction has occurred over the book, Engaging with Martyn Lloyd-Jones. And not only the book, but reviews of the book are also provoking reactions.

David Ceri Jones, who edited the book, recently took notice of several less than enthusiastic reviews on his blog. He singles out Iain Murray for his “predictably critical” review and his “customary scepticism.” Graham Harrison is also rebuked for his “fairly predictable criticism” of the book.

Mr. Jones then points us to Carl Trueman’s review that is described as having “rapier like accuracy.” Trueman, of course, comes shining through with his comments about Iain Murray’s review: “This is predictable and standard Banner fare.” I’m not that familiar with David Ceri Jones, but I can say that Carl Trueman’s review of Iain Murray’s review was rather – predictable.

But the real kicker comes at the end of the blog post where there is a link to a “more balanced review” on Amazon. I suppose the “balance” is best illustrated by the reviewer’s comment that Dr. Lloyd-Jones’s “impact is unnoticeable when placed against the impact of say Rowan Williams, Hans Kung, Karl Barth etc.” Rowan Williams? Are you serious? Maybe the reviewer really meant Rowan Atkinson?

What are we to make of this? Apparently, “predictable” is bad and “balanced” is good. And in this case, bad and good seems to be indicated by what the reviewer personally thought of Dr. Lloyd-Jones. I have no problem with Iain Murray or Graham Harrison sticking up for their friend and colleague if they think he was unfairly treated by people who weren’t there or didn’t know him. This is certainly “predictable” and forgivable.

But what is unforgivable is how Iain Murray and the Banner of Truth are dismissed as party hacks. There was no mention of a favorable review by Andrew Roycroft on the Banner of Truth website. Likewise, Iain Murray had this to say, “This book is not to be recommended to those who want an introduction to Dr. Lloyd-Jones. For those who already have some familiarity with his writings it will give some help in some areas.” This is quite different from the accusation that “Murray unfortunately feels unable to recommend the book to Banner readers…”

Carl Trueman’s comments might also have been different if he had just read what Iain Murray actually said, rather than going off half-cocked about how history is written. What Murray really said was,

“Consideration of his personality, its strengths and weaknesses, are interesting and debatable, but without what he believed there can be no real engagement… Why not? Probably the explanation lies in the statement that the contributors and a ‘team of historians’, and historians who, for the most part, are working in the university context where ‘beliefs’ are not to be judged as true or false, any more that Scripture is to be judged true or false. Today’s ‘scholarly’ standpoint has to be neutral objectivity. Certainly not all eleven contributors write from this standpoint…”

Murray then goes on to give three examples from the book in which this takes place.

Trueman, however, instead of interacting with the examples given, talks about the Holocaust and just belittles Mr. Murray’s approach as “very simplistic” and “somewhat useless”. If you’ve read Iain Murray’s introduction to his biography of Jonathan Edwards, you know exactly what he’s talking about. Modern writers tend to dismiss or diminish Edwards’s religious beliefs altogether, while still claiming to objectively write on their subject. This is what Mr. Murray is talking about.

But all of this is nothing new for Mr. Trueman – see here and here. So even Carl Trueman turns out to be (horror of horrors!) predictable, too.

Dr. Lloyd-Jones on “the young people”

In a discussion about the reasons why Dr. Lloyd-Jones discontinued the candidates class at his church, Iain Murray makes reference to the first book review Dr. Lloyd-Jones ever wrote. The book reviewed was A. T. Schofield’s Christian Sanity, which had much that was agreeable to Dr. Lloyd-Jones. But, Dr. Lloyd-Jones took issue with the author’s statement that “nearly 75 per cent out of 1,000 Christians questioned were converted before the age of 20.”

Here are Dr. Lloyd-Jones’s comments:

From this, Schofield tends, as many others definitely do, to conclude that conversion is somehow related to puberty and its concomitant changes. One wonders whether there is not a grave danger here of confusing ‘confirmation or acceptance into full membership’ with ‘conversion’. To me, there is nothing which is quite so pernicious and detrimental to the true interests of Christianity as this association of ‘conversion’ with a certain age period. There is no question but that this teaching is responsible for all the concentration upon ‘the young people’ which characterises our church work in these days, and makes many a minister and deacon say woefully: ‘The young people and children are our only hope – we must concentrate upon them.’ Such statements and such a belief show a lack of faith and set a limit upon the power of God. The Gospel recognises no such limit – there is hope to the end, to the eleventh hour. There is as much hope today for the middle-aged and the aged as there is for the young people. It may be more difficult to teach morality and ethics to the older people or to teach one’s own special fads and fancies with respect to the Christian life, but to ‘The Help of the helpless’ and ‘Hope of the hopeless’ there are no such distinctions. Yea, indeed, the besetting sin of most who are concerned in Christian work is to concentrate on one particular age or one particular truth instead of delivering ‘the whole counsel of God’ to all and sundry whoever or whatever they may be. Concentration upon the young is a large part of the genius and success of Roman Catholicism, but surely it is the very antithesis of the genius of Protestantism. It is one thing to produce a religious man – men can do that – but it takes the power of God in Jesus Christ to produce a Christian man, and there is no limit to that power.

– pages 161-162, D. M. Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years