Dennis Rokser, Duluth Bible Church, and Incongruity

Recently, someone who attends Duluth Bible Church wrote to me with his/her concerns about some recent preaching from Dennis Rokser. He/she wrote these things:

I'm a believer who attends Duluth Bible Church, pastored by Dennis Rokser... I really feel the need to share and discuss some things. If you are willing to have such a dialogue, I'd be grateful. I've been observing your blog and others for some time and I've come to get a feeling for who has a spirit of grace, though I must say I'm undecided about where I stand on some of the doctrinal controversy.

The thing that prompted me to write to you is the proclamation of two recent messages at DBC by Dennis Rokser. They address specifically the issue of the [current controversy], and Bob Wilkin and Zane Hodges are referenced and quoted extensively. Not only is the spirit of the messages caustic, I also have some problems with the content and conclusions.

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Antonio,

Thanks so much for responding. I'd really be appreciative if you could give me your feedback on the two recent messages. I think I see some things that are contradictory... I will tell you this. Prior to the whole [current controversial] fiasco, we at DBC were taught that the gospel is 1 Corinthians 15:3,4, but we were never before taught that there are exactly five things a person must believe to be saved (as outlined in the Grace Family Journal articles). In fact, I bet if you took a survey at the door at DBC, very few people would be able to name the five things that are supposedly essential to the salvation message.

I'm not claiming to have a handle on this whole issue... However, I'm as concerned (or more) about how it's being handled. I don't like the name calling, the caustic attitude, and the pride that goes along with being on the attack in this way.

First, I would like to say that this person will remain anonymous at his/her request. I do not wish there to be any consequences to this person for having the guts to investigate and question.

Next, I must note that I believe it to be shameful to use a pulpit to bully people into doctrinal conformity, as it seems to be the case at Duluth from this anonymous member's perspective. This person is not the first member of Duluth Bible Church to email me with concerns. In reality, I have had several members of this church email me about the goings on there.

In my writings, I have dealt with the arguments of that group of fundamentalists and traditionalists that require the lost to become faithful adherents to their creeds before they can simply rely on Jesus to be saved from condemnation. I believed that there really wasn't much more to say on this. Yet, recently, from this anonymous member of Duluth, I received this email describing for me a new line of argumentation coming from the doctrinal legalism and checklist evangelism of the Duluthian Antagonists, that I wish to comment on. Here this member of Duluth describes it:

Antonio,

I have one question. In the two recent messages, Dennis Rokser continually used the term 'incongruity' in his effort to show that the message preached must be the message believed. In other words, because the message was preached and believed, as indicated in several Scriptures, therefore all of the message must be mandatory.

This concept of 'no incongruity' is completely new in our church. Do you know where it comes from?

One of the first things you notice when reading sermons, messages, and discourses in the bible, is that it will only take you a matter of minutes to read them. I wish it were the case with some of the lectures that I have had to endure in school that they would only took a few minutes to listen to! From all experience and logic, we must conclude that these discourses transcribed for us are merely condensed versions of the actual event. The authors pick and choose what they wish to include, and take liberty in condensing the information for space sake, in line with their purposes and intentions in providing the material in the first place. Of course, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, what remains for us is accurate and authoritative. But what must first be recognized is that many of these sermons recorded for us in the Bible (whether it be from Jesus, Peter, Paul, etc) are major truncations of the actual speaking engagement. The summarizations (or if you'd rather, truncations or condensations) that require but a few moments to read may have taken the actual speaker dozens of minutes through hours to verbally articulate!

The fundamentalists already have a hefty size checklist of creedal statements (along with their implicit sub-points that must be assented to in their minutia) that they require to be believed before the lost can have eternal life. Now it is being said that the entire messages that the apostles (how can we actually know all that they said in their evangelistic messages?!) and the checklist evangelists give in evangelistic settings must be believed in order to be saved! This could potentially include many more dozens of assertions and affirmations.

When I evangelize, I am trying to persuade the lost that Jesus Christ is authoritative, qualified, and uniquely able to dispense eternal life to all who simply believe in Him for it. I am prepared to discuss a wide range of things, from very simple affirmations, to very complex doctrinal considerations.

I don't expect the lost to believe every thing that I say to them concerning the bible, God, or Jesus Nor would I ever imagine to require that they believed everything I say. Some things concerning Jesus and soteriology are not the milk of the word, but the meat, and therefore may be doubted by the lost, who are not trained to digest such. Yet I will include anything that I think is helpful, tailored to the individual I am addressing.

To require that one believe everything that is said in an evangelistic message spawns a world of problems and confusions. Furthermore, it is simply bad logic to conclude that because men and women are described for us in the bible as having believed a message that was spoken that the assent to the entire message is an actual theological requirement from the perspective of God, mandated from God, for the reception of everlasting life. It is simply non-sequitor.

To this anonymous member of Duluth, I wrote back:

Let us say that you were a juror in a court of law, and in the course of all the testimony, because of the star witness, you were persuaded that the defendant was indeed guilty. Yet, it is not precluded that you may not be convinced of everything that the witness said. You very well could disbelieve or doubt many things that she said. But if something(s) she said convinced you that the defendant was guilty, then you would have to send in your verdict of guilty, regardless of those items that you doubted (in other words, disbelieved). So, in a sense, you believed and were convinced the defendant was guilty in spite of some of the testimony that you couldn't believe.

Let us say that I said many things about Jesus in an evangelism setting. I really want to talk about Jesus, and answer all the lost's questions. Why? I am trying to persuade them that Jesus is authorized, able, and willing to guarantee their eternal destiny by faith in Him alone.

But let us say that in the course of this conversation that I had with a lost person, that some of the things that I said he had doubts about, in other words, did not believe. But what if I came to the part where I said John 3:16 or John 5:24, or John 6:35-40 or John 6:47 or John 11:25-26 and at that point the lost person believed in Jesus for the everlasting life that He alone offers in those verses.

This lost person has believed in Jesus even though he may doubt some of the things that I said.

But when this person places all of his trust in Jesus for the gift that only He offers, he will be born again and have the Spirit of God. In time, with prayer, the word of God, and the Holy Spirit, all of this person's doubts can be cleared up.

But one thing is for sure, a man can place all of his trust into Jesus for everlasting life and not believe everything that he has heard about Him! Some things are the meat of the word that are difficult to understand!

The anonymous member of Duluth wrote this in response, showing me he/she understood what I was saying:

I see what you are saying in your response. Just because something is included in a message doesn't mean it's part of the essential core of the message, right? Otherwise, we'd have to take every doctrine or truth that is part of every message/sermon/passage on salvation and make all of them mandatory. That doesn't make sense. If Paul touched on creation in one of his sermons in Acts, that was for his intended audience and not a universal required element of the message. Am I on the right track here?

The thrust of the two recent messages and the 'no incongruency' theme seemed to me to be saying that because Paul preached something, it's an essential element of the message of salvation. I think that's what is meant by 'There is no incongruency between the message preached and the message believed." But taken to its logical conclusion, that would mean that everything that Paul preached or wrote about in salvation passages must be part of the essential message.

I was very pleased to read this from the member of Duluth. It meant that he/she is investigating, questioning, and thinking these things through. Yet, at the same time, I am concerned by what the members of Duluth are being spoon-fed. From some of the correspondences that I have had with members of Duluth, I get the unmistakable impression that strong consequences are in store for those who question the teaching from that fundamentalist pulpit.

In conclusion, I wish to state that the incongruity lies not in the fact that Free Grace theology does not require the lost to assent to everything that is preached in an evangelistic message. The incongruity lies between the requirements that these fundamentalist traditionalists impose on the lost and the promise of eternal life by the Lord Jesus Christ: "Most assuredly I say to you, whoever believes in Me has everlasting life" (Jn 6:47). This incongruity creates a large divide between the way that these traditionalists evangelize and the way Jesus Christ did.