The Free Grace Alliance

By Dr. Roger Fankhauser, FGA President The fallout of Tullian Tchividjian's admission of an "inappropriate relationship" will sweep broadly through the Christian community. First, how does it impact the message of Free Grace? I'll call Tchividjian "Free-Grace-ish," as he seems to have moved substantially towards a free grace position, but may not be fully free-grace. His views recently led to a separation between him and the Gospel Coalition, as explained by Tim Keller and Don Carson: It was obvious to observers that for some time there has been an increasingly strident debate   going on around the issue of sanctification . The differences were doctrinal and probably even more matters of pastoral practice and wisdom. [1] So, reformed theologians already have their eyes on him. As I write this, I have yet to see any article by a prominent reformed writer which connects his fall with "antinomianism" or his free-gr...

I have come to the conclusion I am not "truly" saved. I hope that rattles you. Let me explain why I have come to this conclusion: Traffic. Yep, traffic. You see, I consistently get irritated when other drivers fail to use their turn signals. I get a snarky attitude, and I often make some obnoxious comment about said driver (which does not please my wife, by the way). I am stuck in habitual sin. Sure, I confess.... but then it pops up again. And again. And again. Probably has for decades. Even after deciding to write this post, fully aware of my tendency, I still responded poorly to traffic. While driving through a little town outside Seattle, it took us 30 minutes to go two blocks through two lights. My attitude was stinky, my comments were not kind. My wife was, rightfully, not pleased with me. And then again today, I gave a snide "gee, thanks" to someone who failed to use their blinker. So here's my problem. As one well-known writer puts it,...

By Dr. Roger Fankhauser Why proclaim grace? “I must not be saved if I can’t beat this sin.” The person then walked away from their faith. Someone else said, “I've lived way too many years of my life in bondage, conforming to religious rules instead of only looking to Christ... Some days I feel as if my heart will burst knowing how much God loves me. Some time ago, I started meeting with a group that, unfortunately, was a shame based group that doesn't practice or walk in grace. I feel like I've been saved all over again finding freedom in Christ as he is showing me truth in his word. ” The subtle – or not-so-subtle – problem with any kind of performance based “Christianity” is that it is counterproductive. Instead of producing joy or producing “abundant” life, it produces guilt or unreasonable introspection. Instead of producing power for living, it knocks us down. Instead of producing hope, it produces despair. It doesn’t produce freedom, it produces bondage...

By Dr. Roger Fankhauser, FGA Executive Council member and the pastor of Burleson Bible Church in Burleson, Texas.  Dr. Fankhauser can be reached at rsfankhauser at bellsouth dot net.   Antinomianism.   A fancy word meaning “lawless”.   Many who don’t get the free grace message accuse us of practicing and teaching antinomianism. They think – wrongly – that the free grace message is light on sin and light on obedience. The author of a recent best-selling book describes the message that he alleges some present this way: “We have been told all that is required is a one-time decision, maybe even mere intellectual assent to Jesus, but after that we need not worry about his commands, his standards, or his glory. We have a ticket to heaven, and we can live however we want on earth. Our sin will be tolerated along the way….” Another well-known author put it this way: “What is no-Lordship theology (the author’s name for free grace theology) but the teaching that those w...

Our 2011 Free Grace Alliance national conference is underway!  I will try to post some thoughts on each day and what we are hearing from our speakers. The first day was phenomenal. First, our praise band led us in spirited worship of God, and then Dr. Fred Chay gave us a great update on the status of the Free Grace movement and the FGA in particular.  If you’ve heard Fred before, you know that he always speaks with his signature dry wit, and his speech before our convention was no exception.  He spoke in John 3:16 and the many “isms” that it refutes. After a short break, Dr. Mike Stallard took the podium and spoke on the seriousness of sin in Free Grace theology from James 4.  It was, to say the least, a passionate and moving reminder to all of us that God takes sin seriously and calls all believers to live a life of personal holiness.  It was moving, convicting, and at the same time encouraging! The first workshop session was cause for concern.  It w...

This post is written by Jim McNeely. He can be reached at jim@thereforenow.com .  His site, http://thereforenow.com is a great resource for Free Grace thinkers.   It has fallen to me recently to teach a group of youth at our church, so I have seized the opportunity to walk them through the book of Romans. I told them that it would change their life forever, but that it was going to be difficult, it was going to have times that it would be dull, and that I didn't think that most of them were up to it. They got excited!   What is amazing is that these are young teenagers who have very little theological training or understanding, in fact it is a bit embarrassing that they are so uninformed about the Bible and basic theology. However, just as in every circle, as we have begun to see the message of grace unfold, there are two distinct camps. There are some who love the message of grace, and some who are scandalized by it. In fact I have never seen a works salvation pos...

by Ryan Lambros   “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1   I upgrade my PC from Vista to Windows 7 about a month ago. I love the change. However, recently I had a serious problem. My lovely computer would freeze up on me right after starting it up. After running numerous diagnostic tests, of which I had no clue what they mean since I’m not a computer nerd, it showed I had a hard drive error. Darn it. So, I searched Google to see if anyone else had this problem and if there was fix. After sifting through tons of people basically telling me that my hard drive was a “goner” because my hard drive had been fried by a virus, I found a different perspective: the wonderful cause of the defective hard drive was directly associated with an antivirus software I was using! After simply uninstalling the antivirus software, my computer worked flawlessly. The reason was that the antivirus software was not de...

By Ryan Lambros   When I was 9 years old, my family went to California for a jump-rope tournament (yes, I was a competitive jump-roper…but that’s another blog discussion). While staying at the hotel near Coronado Island, we met 2 young Naval officers who were on a brief stay from the USS Kitty Hawk. My dad, being the talkative, I-can-befriend-anyone type guy, got them to see if we could go on board the aircraft carrier that night and tour the incredible ship. They pulled some strings and got my family and the whole jump rope team passes to tour the carrier.   When we arrived at the dock to enter the hugest ship I’d ever seen, we were each given passes that identified us as being with the two young men, thus giving us authorization to board the ship. I remember my dad telling me, “Ryan, if anyone asks who you are or why you’re here, you show them your pass and say, ‘I’m with him’ (pointing to one of the guys).” We continued the tour and I stayed super close to the two guys...

By Dr. Fred Chay   Having dealt with the predicament many ministers face in the church today in Part 1 of this series , we turn now to finding a biblical pattern for approaching people who are living carnal lives in order to help them repent and live eternally significant lives.   It is a well documented fact of history that the church at Corinth in the mid fifties of the first century was shot through with serious issues of divisions, a spirit of selfishness, and immorality.  To navigate the twisted estuary of issues that existed at Corinth required all the skill the apostle Paul had gained and an abundance of the grace of God to the church. Paul approaches his task with a clear strategy which reveals a biblical pattern for counseling carnal Christians.   (1) Paul Affirms Their Position   The apostle Paul begins by affirming their position in Jesus Christ. He begins at the outset of his first epistle by reminding them of their true position and personho...