Carson and Keller on Jakes and the Elephant Room
- Author(s): D. A. Carson
- Date published: February 3, 2012
- URL: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/carson-and-keller-on-jakes-and-the-elephant-room/
- Date accessed: July 24, 2019
This article touches on many issues, but the biggest interests to me are the two types of biblicism and the topic of empowerment. There are two different kinds of biblicism presented in the article. Both claim to adhere to Scripture as the highest authority. However, “Biblicism One” does not exegete the text carefully, or consider how the text has been wrestled with in the past, while “Biblicism Two” does. Biblicism One, in my view, is often represented today by the slogan, “no creed but the gospel.”
Carson also addresses the concept of biblical empowerment. Prosperity theology takes empowerment to mean a material empowerment for health and wealth. This may be stated as “empowering the broken,” which can indeed be a biblical sort of empowerment. However, if the expansion of the definition focuses on material empowerment rather than the much more far-reaching, eternal truths of the gospel, then something has gone awry.