Gospel Project

I read with great interest the Associated Baptist Press article, “Is LifeWay curriculum biased to Calvinists?” in the Aug. 30 issue. I found Dr. Emir Caner’s critiques of The Gospel Project to be very interesting because my Bible study class was part of the pilot project that reviewed the first four lessons before the full quarterly was released. 

The article says he previewed early sample lessons, but I don’t know that he was reading the same material I was using. I did not see in the material anything regarding predestination or a diminishing of human responsibility. Are some of the people cited Calvinists? Yes. Some are also Arminian. And some are from the period of the Great Church, such as Augustine of Hippo and John of Damascus.

In addition, his accusation of “ecumenism” (and by implication, “liberalism”) is simply unfounded. Does the material quote different people throughout church history to make a specific point? Yes. Were some of them not Baptists? Yes. Is that ecumenism? No. 

Ecumenism is the effort to reduce all Protestant Christian denominations to one denomination by means of a very broad and very shallow doctrinal basis. It essentially says, “Let’s ignore our differences and come together for the sake of unity.” There was no ecumenism or liberalism in the material that I saw.

Personally I don’t think The Gospel Project is anymore Calvinistic than the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, a document worded broadly enough that those who tend toward some elements of Arminianism and some elements of Calvinism (and some points in between) can come together around it.

A.J. Smith
Alabaster Ala.