*Editor’s Note: Our mission at RENEW.org is to “renew the teachings of Jesus to Fuel Disciple Making,” so we want to take note of an important debate that is currently transpiring between biblical scholars that relates to disciple making. RENEW.org published New Testament theologian Mathew Bates’s book The Gospel Precisely, and he has come under critique, primarily by prominent five-point Calvinists, for a recent, related book: Beyond the Salvation Wars (Brazos Press, 2025). We asked Bill Hull to explain the debate for everyday church leaders. Bill is a vital RENEW.org Network voice because of his national leadership roles over the years and his expertise on disciple making, as he has written more on that topic in the last forty years than anyone else in the English language.
Q. In Beyond the Salvation Wars, how does Matthew Bates frame Christian salvation differently from the traditional “salvation wars”?
The main difference I think is that Bates, a Protestant, has invited Catholics to the dialogue. Typically, in my world, the salvation wars have been between the Protestants. We’ve divided things up and continued to splinter ever since the Reformation.
Although Bates now teaches at Northern Seminary in the Chicago area, he is a graduate of Notre Dame University and a former professor at Quincy University, both Catholic schools. Having this broad experience that includes operating in a Catholic environment, Bates is considering a kind of middle way, in some effort to open dialogue and get people talking with each other. I have a general impression of the project and an appreciation of it, but I must say this project is so lofty and magnificent in its goal that it may be a bridge too far.
Q. It’s good to fight to preserve the biblical gospel against weak, false gospels. And yet salvation wars come with a price.
It’s like you’re at a biology lab watching the teacher show you a frog and describing it: She tells how it’s a reptilian animal, it lives in this kind of environment, it likes water, it can jump a long distance, this is its life and habitat, etc. But then the teacher wants to take you deeper into the life of the frog—so she kills it. She takes the frog and lays it out and starts cutting so you can look inside. Here’s the kidney, the gall bladder, and so on. It’s all very interesting, but you realize with each piece you examine that you further lose sight of what a frog actually is.
Think about the gospel as if it were the frog. We start picking it apart and pretty soon we don’t recognize it anymore. In the salvation wars, it’s everybody looking at what they found in the frog. In a sense it’s so diagnostic that you can lose sight of what the gospel actually is. Denominations can tend to create an entire tribe or movement around the particular piece they found in the frog.
“We start picking it apart and pretty soon we don’t recognize it anymore.”
Q. What is Bates’s particular model?
Bates’s model is what he calls “salvation by allegiance alone.” This model is meant to help people think through the ramifications of faith. He shows that biblical faith is more than mental assent or even internal trust in Jesus. Yes, biblical faith means belief and trust but also loyalty and allegiance, which combines well with the biblical emphasis on Jesus’ kingship.
I like this emphasis very much because the Bible does emphasize there’s always evidence that comes with true faith. By demonstrating how the Greek word pistis has this wider range of meaning, Bates shows how we can correct the problem of just mental assent and no follow through. Why don’t we have stronger, better Christians? Why is it that we aren’t multiplying disciples? Why is it that only 5 percent of churches in America are multiplying in a 2 Timothy 2:2 way (to the third and fourth generation)? Bates suggests that these problems stem from a weak view of faith.
Q. Any potential weaknesses with Bates’s model?
Bates believes that various streams of Christians ought to be able to come together more unitedly when we rally around allegiance to King Jesus more than around particular views of justification. He shows how Protestants and Catholics both agree on the gospel’s basic story and then points out places where Protestants (most commonly, Calvinists) and Catholics get their areas of emphasis out of proportion.
Bates is helpful in that he’s a theologian and he brings to the table a broad experience. But I don’t know if anyone can practically do much with this middle way. That is, I don’t expect the Catholics to come over to our side or that we Protestants are going to go over to become Catholics. But I am optimistic that it could open some dialogue so that, for example, a Catholic, Baptist, and Methodist could sit around a table and recognize common ground as followers of Jesus.
I also think it would be difficult to know exactly how to lead a church using the allegiance language. It’s hard to do something with it, pastorally speaking. We know, based on James 2:14-24 for example, that faith with no works cannot save us. Biblical faith leads to works and fruitfulness. But when we talk of salvation by allegiance, it practically brings in questions of whether there is a sense in which we are saved by what we do, how much allegiance we must demonstrate, etc. Bates tackles these questions, but the implications probably remain confusing for the average Christian.
“Biblical faith leads to works and fruitfulness.”
By contrast, I do think most people can accept the language of “belief” and “faith” and that we can do a better job for them of clarifying what biblical faith is. The fundamental problem we face is that in America you can become a Christian and not follow Jesus. We have separated conversion from discipleship, when the Bible doesn’t make that an offer on the table. So now, whether I become a full-on disciple of Jesus has become optional. In light of that core problem, I believe we can and must do a better job clarifying what biblical faith is and what it entails. Bates is helpful in fleshing out what faith is, but the language of “salvation by allegiance” might unnecessarily confuse churches.
Q. Recently, some Southern Baptist leaders met to discuss Bates’s book. What are their main concerns with the book?
Albert Mohler and the other three scholars with him started the conversation with their incredulity that the church could have gotten the gospel wrong the last 2,000 years. On the one hand, they are right that there’s an orthodoxy that most people who take the Bible seriously can agree on (for example, what Paul describes at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 15)—and this in fact is something Bates makes a major point of his book. On the other hand, there are a lot of different areas of emphasis within the denominations, and even people off the map who call themselves Christian. I would think that Mohler and his friends would agree that within various groups, the gospel can get distorted and even lost.
In fact, I would suggest that the Southern Baptists have unintentionally (yet often) been champions of a divided gospel—where we emphasize forgiveness only, we get ‘em saved, and then we leave the rest optional. I’ve spent my lifetime talking to pastors of that ilk, who are spending all their time trying to get the already saved to live like it because it’s not already part of their gospel. “Please take up the option on your contract!” is what they basically have to say. In my opinion, the Southern Baptist Convention have been among the worst offenders on that.
“‘Please take up the option on your contract!’ is what they basically have to say.”
When it came down to it, the Southern Baptist gentlemen having the conversation are Calvinist, and that seemingly predetermined their response. (And I will add, I felt that they were gentlemanly about their response to Bates; they remained reasonably well-behaved.) As Calvinists, they look at all the doctrines through that neat, tidy system of Calvinism. Accordingly, they would see any attempt to connect the conversion experience with allegiance, faithfulness, or even baptism as a form of salvation by works. I don’t think they can tolerate the moving of the salvation vocabulary over, as they make justification by faith alone the centerpiece of the gospel.
Q. But Bates teaches justification by faith too, doesn’t he?
Yes. He draws distinctions between the gospel proper (which includes events such as Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection, kingship, and ascension), the gospel response, and the gospel benefits. We respond to the gospel as Jesus called us to: Repent of our sins, believe the Good News, be baptized, and “follow me” (see Mark 1:14-18). That is the gospel response.
So, Bates doesn’t deny justification by faith, even as he shows biblical faith to have a wider range of meaning than just internal belief and trust. Biblical faith is embodied. I agree with Bates on that. Calvinists tend to be so locked into their language that they think the core of the gospel is justification by faith alone, whereas Bates locates the gospel’s core in how Jesus is the saving, risen King—and it’s through his kingship that everything else flows. That includes our faith response which involves allegiance to his kingship.
Q. In this latest theological dustup, what’s your advice to people who lean toward Bates’s gospel-allegiance model?
My advice would be that, if you’re a Christan leader/teacher, come up with a clean way of communicating that discipleship isn’t optional—a way that will relate to the average person. If you’re just having discussion among leaders and theologians, there are venues for getting technical. But figure out a way to voice the need for a faithful faith as clearly as possible.
“Figure out a way to voice the need for a faithful faith as clearly as possible.”
I was in this group of Christian thinkers trying to think through the core problem with the church in America. Afterward someone asked, “So what did you decide?” I said, “I think it’s that we’ve taught people they can be Christians and not follow Jesus.”
“So, what’s the solution?” they asked. I offered this conclusion: “The solution is to reorganize your life around the teachings of Jesus and he’ll teach you what you need to know.”
Another way to put this is that there’s the gospel about Jesus (e.g., Paul looking back) and the gospel of Jesus (what Jesus did and taught when on earth). Join the two together and you’ll have a powerful gospel indeed.
For those who may want to understand more about 5-Point Calvinism and how it influences the way people interpret the Bible, we recommend the short, clear, and free eBook by John Whittaker, What is Calvinism: Thinking Through the Basics.
If you are a senior minister/pastor, we invite you to join our upcoming Learning Community this coming Thursday at 10 AM Central Time titled, “Is Calvinism a Barrier in Disciple Making?” We will discuss the difficulties that 5-Point Calvinism presents to disciple making. Click here to learn about it. Email Mike@renew.org if you want to join.
Lastly, if you are attuned or attracted to the deeper level theological debates, we recommend the exceptionally well-written and thought-out review of the theological debate by John Mark Hicks, Book Review: Matthew Bates, Beyond the Salvation Wars.
