The Auburn Avenue Chronicles: The Complete Collection of Blog & Mablog Posts on the Federal Vision

by Douglas Wilson

In January 2002, four Reformed ministers spoke at a pastors conference in Monroe, Louisiana. A few months later, the Reformed world and the Internet blew up with heresy accusations (and condemnations) and heated debates over the theology presented at the conference. Two names stuck—the name of the conference, The Federal Vision, and the name of the host church, Auburn Avenue.

In April 2004, one of the four ministers, Douglas Wilson, set up shop at Blog & Mablog (dougwils.com), and over the next thirteen years wrote over a third of a million words on the Federal Vision theology and surrounding controversy, all of which have been collected in this volume.

From the Introduction: “It must be confessed that this thing is kind of a slab of theological controversial writing, and so I do confess it. But at the same time, I believe there is a lot of edifying theology here—distinctions that the Reformed used to make still need to be made, as long as the people of God need to be pastored. I trust that the experience of reading this will be edifying over all, even if it includes working through some of the blunders I later repudiate and repent of. Don’t try to get through it in one sitting.”

960 pages, ebook

Published October 1, 2018

About the author

I write in order to make the little voices in my head go away. Thus far it hasn't worked.

Reviews

[ValeReads Kyriosity · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm pretty sure I read every word of this book over the thirteen years during which the posts were originally published, plus skimming it in preparing the files for publication, so I'm going to count it as read. While I wish the whole subject hadn't become such a debacle, I'm not sure I can fault the author so much as he faults himself in the "Federal Vision No Mas" post that is, with the exception of a few loose ends, the finale of the book. I don't care whether we call it Federal Vision or Vederal Fission or Vader's Gone Fishin', the objectivity of the covenant makes sense to me, and Doug's writings on the topic have always seemed perfectly clear. I had a friend once who lit into me for deliberately insulting her by using vocabulary that was over her head. At least she was convinced in her own mind that I was guilty of doing so. I, of course, had had no such intention and no awareness of her perception that I had. I think Doug was, at least with some opponents, up against the same sort of thing: "You're cleverer than us, therefore you must be sinning." Fiddlesticks.

[David M.]

Read this front to back. That may sound like something only a crazy person would do, and perhaps.

In the end, it helped me understand some things I’ve been trying to understand for a long while, it gave food for thought and helpful insights to a subject I’m stuck on at present (covenant), and Wilson’s witty prose carried me along enjoyably.

Would have to strain to think of any reason I’d be recommending this to anyone else... but it was insightful for me. So that’s that.