The Federal Vision (also called Auburn Avenue Theology) is a line of Christian thought based in the USA.
Proponents of Federal Vision theology view themselves as influenced by the Protestant Reformers, especially those responsible for drawing up the Westminster Confession.
[4][5][6] In January 2002 Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Monroe, Louisiana (now Church of the Redeemer, West Monroe, Louisiana), hosted its annual pastors' conference with speakers Douglas Wilson, John Barach, Steve Wilkins, and Steve Schlissel addressing the topic "The Federal Vision: An Examination of Reformed Covenantalism."
The organizers and speakers intended the conference to provide a positive covenantal (i.e., federal) view (i.e., vision) of issues such as assurance of salvation and child-rearing.
Signers include Randy Booth, Tim Gallant, Mark Horne, James B. Jordan, Peter Leithart, Rich Lusk, and Ralph A.
"[9] Those who oppose Federal Vision theology include E. Calvin Beisner,[10] R. Scott Clark,[11] Ligon Duncan,[12] David Engelsma,[13] J. V. Fesko,[14] Michael Horton,[11] Joseph Pipa,[10] John Robbins,[15] Brian Schwertley,[16] Morton H. Smith,[10] David Van Drunen[11] and Guy Waters.
[22] Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church, the church at which the original 2002 conference was held, has revised and republished its statement on "Covenant, Baptism, and Salvation," which they state was "not intended to erect some new standard of orthodoxy or to imply that we were settled on these points and could not be challenged or dissuaded from them, and it was certainly not intended to erect another wall to divide the Church or as a means to denounce or exclude from fellowship our brothers who might disagree with us," and that it was "a response to the critique and instruction we have received and is an effort to make our position more clear and (we trust) more easily understood.
Consider Lusk's comment: If we oversimplify, we can say that election relates to God’s eternal plan to save a people for himself.
To follow the Biblical model, we must view our fellow church members as elect and regenerate and threaten them with the dangers of falling away.
[29]He goes on to speak of apostates within the covenant: God has decreed from the foundation of the world all that comes to pass, including who would be saved and lost for all eternity.
These people, for a season, enjoy real blessings, purchased for them by Christ’s cross and applied to them by the Holy Spirit through Word and Sacrament.
Proponents of the Federal Vision have a view of baptism that they argue returns to the beliefs of the original Reformers, particularly John Calvin.
[33][34][35] Obviously, for Reformed Christians, the ultimate test of any doctrine is its fidelity to the whole counsel of God, revealed in the pages of Scripture.
[36]This point has generated much controversy and confusion, because the advocates of the Federal Vision do not mean regeneration as the term is used today.
Louis Berkhof writes, "Calvin also used the term [regeneration] in a very comprehensive sense as a designation of the whole process by which man is renewed.
"[37] Critics point out, however, that all the benefits of saving union with Christ are associated with baptism by Federal Vision writers.
Rich Lusk writes, In Calvin's Strasbourg catechism, he asks the student "How do you know yourself to be a son of God in fact as well as in name?"
Early on in his discussion of baptism in the Institutes, Calvin claims, "We must realize that at whatever time we are baptized, we are once for all washed and purged for our whole life.
[39] Advocates of the Federal Vision are proponents of paedocommunion, the indiscriminate distribution of the communion to all infants and children of church members.
Non-Federal Vision Reformed advocates of paedocommunion include C. John Collins, Curtis Crenshaw, Gary North and Andrew Sandlin.
Calvin specifically rejects paedocommunion in his Institutes of the Christian Religion Book IV, chapter xvi, section 30.
Rather, it’s [a] matter of ‘practice makes perfect.’ Peter Enns describes it well in a thought-provoking question: ‘What if biblical interpretation is not guided so much by method but by an intuitive, Spirit-led engagement of Scripture with the anchor being not what the author intended but by how Christ gives the OT [Old Testament] its final coherence?’ The coming of Christ led the apostles to practice new patterns of exegesis, centered on their conviction that the eschatological age had been inaugurated.
Adherents of the Federal Vision often make use of and recommend the general interpretive works of Sidney Greidanus, Christopher J. H. Wright, Richard Gaffin, N. T. Wright, Stanley Hauerwas, George Stroup, Richard Hays, Rikk Watts, Willard Swartley, Sylvia Keesmaat, Ben Witherington, J Ross Wagner, Don Garlington, Craig Evans, Steve Moyise, and David Pao.
[8] Another controversial aspect of the Federal Vision theology is the denial of the imputation of Christ’s active obedience in His earthly life.
[43] Peter Leithart has publicly said in a letter to PCA Pacific Northwest Presbytery that: This is an issue I am still thinking about, and on which I don’t have a settled position.
His earthly life was ‘for us’ in the sense that it was the precondition for his death, but it is not given ‘to us.’[46]Lusk agrees: Surely God does not require everyone to work as a carpenter or to turn water into wine or raise a twelve-year-old girl from the dead.
Federal Vision proponents have sought to maintain a distinction between the two theologies while acknowledging that they do have some general ideas in common.
Although the label "New Perspective on Paul" appears to have gained some currency within the church, it seems wisest to reserve this to describe the academic movement formally launched by E. P. Sanders and sustained by James D. G. Dunn and N. T.
[51]Proponent James B. Jordan says similarly, For some reason mysterious to me, the association of the FV speakers with the NPP has stuck, even though there are no grounds for it.
Leithart, however, has said that Federal Vision theology "is stimulated by Anglican New Testament scholar NT Wright..."[65]