關於 distinct from each other meaning ，我們在網路上蒐集到這些相關的討論、資訊與評價

📜 [專欄新文章] Uniswap v3 Features Explained in Depth

✍️ 田少谷 Shao

📥 歡迎投稿： https://medium.com/taipei-ethereum-meetup #徵技術分享文 #使用心得 #教學文 #medium

Once again the game-changing DEX 🦄 👑

Image source: https://uniswap.org/blog/uniswap-v3/

Outline

0. Intro1. Uniswap & AMM recap2. Ticks 3. Concentrated liquidity4. Range orders: reversible limit orders5. Impacts of v36. Conclusion

0. Intro

The announcement of Uniswap v3 is no doubt one of the most exciting news in the DeFi place recently 🔥🔥🔥

While most have talked about the impact v3 can potentially bring on the market, seldom explain the delicate implementation techniques to realize all those amazing features, such as concentrated liquidity, limit-order-like range orders, etc.

Since I’ve covered Uniswap v1 & v2 (if you happen to know Mandarin, here are v1 & v2), there’s no reason for me to not cover v3 as well ✅

Thus, this article aims to guide readers through Uniswap v3, based on their official whitepaper and examples made on the announcement page. However, one needs not to be an engineer, as not many codes are involved, nor a math major, as the math involved is definitely taught in your high school, to fully understand the following content 😊😊😊

If you really make it through but still don’t get shxt, feedbacks are welcomed! 🙏

There should be another article focusing on the codebase, so stay tuned and let’s get started with some background noise!

1. Uniswap & AMM recap

Before diving in, we have to first recap the uniqueness of Uniswap and compare it to traditional order book exchanges.

Uniswap v1 & v2 are a kind of AMMs (automated market marker) that follow the constant product equation x * y = k, with x & y stand for the amount of two tokens X and Y in a pool and k as a constant.

Comparing to order book exchanges, AMMs, such as the previous versions of Uniswap, offer quite a distinct user experience:

AMMs have pricing functions that offer the price for the two tokens, which make their users always price takers, while users of order book exchanges can be both makers or takers.

Uniswap as well as most AMMs have infinite liquidity¹, while order book exchanges don’t. The liquidity of Uniswap v1 & v2 is provided throughout the price range [0,∞]².

Uniswap as well as most AMMs have price slippage³ and it’s due to the pricing function, while there isn’t always price slippage on order book exchanges as long as an order is fulfilled within one tick.

In an order book, each price (whether in green or red) is a tick. Image source: https://ftx.com/trade/BTC-PERP

¹ though the price gets worse over time; AMM of constant sum such as mStable does not have infinite liquidity

² the range is in fact [-∞,∞], while a price in most cases won’t be negative

³ AMM of constant sum does not have price slippage

2. Tick

The whole innovation of Uniswap v3 starts from ticks.

For those unfamiliar with what is a tick:

Source: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tick.asp

By slicing the price range [0,∞] into numerous granular ticks, trading on v3 is highly similar to trading on order book exchanges, with only three differences:

The price range of each tick is predefined by the system instead of being proposed by users.

Trades that happen within a tick still follows the pricing function of the AMM, while the equation has to be updated once the price crosses the tick.

Orders can be executed with any price within the price range, instead of being fulfilled at the same one price on order book exchanges.

With the tick design, Uniswap v3 possesses most of the merits of both AMM and an order book exchange! 💯💯💯

So, how is the price range of a tick decided?

This question is actually somewhat related to the tick explanation above: the minimum tick size for stocks trading above 1$ is one cent.

The underlying meaning of a tick size traditionally being one cent is that one cent (1% of 1$) is the basis point of price changes between ticks, ex: 1.02 — 1.01 = 0.1.

Uniswap v3 employs a similar idea: compared to the previous/next price, the price change should always be 0.01% = 1 basis point.

However, notice the difference is that in the traditional basis point, the price change is defined with subtraction, while here in Uniswap it’s division.

This is how price ranges of ticks are decided⁴:

Image source: https://uniswap.org/whitepaper-v3.pdf

With the above equation, the tick/price range can be recorded in the index form [i, i+1], instead of some crazy numbers such as 1.0001¹⁰⁰ = 1.0100496621.

As each price is the multiplication of 1.0001 of the previous price, the price change is always 1.0001 — 1 = 0.0001 = 0.01%.

For example, when i=1, p(1) = 1.0001; when i=2, p(2) = 1.00020001.

p(2) / p(1) = 1.00020001 / 1.0001 = 1.0001

See the connection between the traditional basis point 1 cent (=1% of 1$) and Uniswap v3’s basis point 0.01%?

Image source: https://tenor.com/view/coin-master-cool-gif-19748052

But sir, are prices really granular enough? There are many shitcoins with prices less than 0.000001$. Will such prices be covered as well?

Price range: max & min

To know if an extremely small price is covered or not, we have to figure out the max & min price range of v3 by looking into the spec: there is a int24 tick state variable in UniswapV3Pool.sol.

Image source: https://uniswap.org/whitepaper-v3.pdf

The reason for a signed integer int instead of an uint is that negative power represents prices less than 1 but greater than 0.

24 bits can cover the range between 1.0001 ^ (2²³ — 1) and 1.0001 ^ -(2)²³. Even Google cannot calculate such numbers, so allow me to offer smaller values to have a rough idea of the whole price range:

1.0001 ^ (2¹⁸) = 242,214,459,604.341

1.0001 ^ -(2¹⁷) = 0.000002031888943

I think it’s safe to say that with a int24 the range can cover > 99.99% of the prices of all assets in the universe 👌

⁴ For implementation concern, however, a square root is added to both sides of the equation.

How about finding out which tick does a price belong to?

Tick index from price

The answer to this question is rather easy, as we know that p(i) = 1.0001^i, simply takes a log with base 1.0001 on both sides of the equation⁴:

Image source: https://www.codecogs.com/latex/eqneditor.php

Let’s try this out, say we wanna find out the tick index of 1000000.

Image source: https://ncalculators.com/number-conversion/log-logarithm-calculator.htm

Now, 1.0001¹³⁸¹⁶² = 999,998.678087146. Voila!

⁵ This formula is also slightly modified to fit the real implementation usage.

3. Concentrated liquidity

Now that we know how ticks and price ranges are decided, let’s talk about how orders are executed in a tick, what is concentrated liquidity and how it enables v3 to compete with stablecoin-specialized DEXs (decentralized exchange), such as Curve, by improving the capital efficiency.

Concentrated liquidity means LPs (liquidity providers) can provide liquidity to any price range/tick at their wish, which causes the liquidity to be imbalanced in ticks.

As each tick has a different liquidity depth, the corresponding pricing function x * y = k also won’t be the same!

Each tick has its own liquidity depth. Image source: https://uniswap.org/blog/uniswap-v3/

Mmm… examples are always helpful for abstract descriptions 😂

Say the original pricing function is 100(x) * 1000(y) = 100000(k), with the price of X token 1000 / 100 = 10 and we’re now in the price range [9.08, 11.08].

If the liquidity of the price range [11.08, 13.08] is the same as [9.08, 11.08], we don’t have to modify the pricing function if the price goes from 10 to 11.08, which is the boundary between two ticks.

The price of X is 1052.63 / 95 = 11.08 when the equation is 1052.63 * 95 = 100000.

However, if the liquidity of the price range [11.08, 13.08] is two times that of the current range [9.08, 11.08], balances of x and y should be doubled, which makes the equation become 2105.26 * 220 = 400000, which is (1052.63 * 2) * (110 * 2) = (100000 * 2 * 2).

We can observe the following two points from the above example:

Trades always follow the pricing function x * y = k, while once the price crosses the current price range/tick, the liquidity/equation has to be updated.

√(x * y) = √k = L is how we represent the liquidity, as I say the liquidity of x * y = 400000 is two times the liquidity of x * y = 100000, as √(400000 / 100000) = 2.

What’s more, compared to liquidity on v1 & v2 is always spread across [0,∞], liquidity on v3 can be concentrated within certain price ranges and thus results in higher capital efficiency from traders’ swapping fees!

Let’s say if I provide liquidity in the range [1200, 2800], the capital efficiency will then be 4.24x higher than v2 with the range [0,∞] 😮😮😮 There’s a capital efficiency comparison calculator, make sure to try it out!

Image source: https://uniswap.org/blog/uniswap-v3/

It’s worth noticing that the concept of concentrated liquidity was proposed and already implemented by Kyper, prior to Uniswap, which is called Automated Price Reserve in their case.⁵

⁶ Thanks to Yenwen Feng for the information.

4. Range orders: reversible limit orders

As explained in the above section, LPs of v3 can provide liquidity to any price range/tick at their wish. Depending on the current price and the targeted price range, there are three scenarios:

current price < the targeted price range

current price > the targeted price range

current price belongs to the targeted price range

The first two scenarios are called range orders. They have unique characteristics and are essentially fee-earning reversible limit orders, which will be explained later.

The last case is the exact same liquidity providing mechanism as the previous versions: LPs provide liquidity in both tokens of the same value (= amount * price).

There’s also an identical product to the case: grid trading, a very powerful investment tool for a time of consolidation. Dunno what’s grid trading? Check out Binance’s explanation on this, as this topic won’t be covered!

In fact, LPs of Uniswap v1 & v2 are grid trading with a range of [0,∞] and the entry price as the baseline.

Range orders

To understand range orders, we’d have to first revisit how price is discovered on Uniswap with the equation x * y = k, for x & y stand for the amount of two tokens X and Y and k as a constant.

The price of X compared to Y is y / x, which means how many Y one can get for 1 unit of X, and vice versa the price of Y compared to X is x / y.

For the price of X to go up, y has to increase and x decrease.

With this pricing mechanism in mind, it’s example time!

Say an LP plans to place liquidity in the price range [15.625, 17.313], higher than the current price of X 10, when 100(x) * 1000(y) = 100000(k).

The price of X is 1250 / 80 = 15.625 when the equation is 80 * 1250 = 100000.

The price of X is 1315.789 / 76 = 17.313 when the equation is 76 * 1315.789 = 100000.

If now the price of X reaches 15.625, the only way for the price of X to go even higher is to further increase y and decrease x, which means exchanging a certain amount of X for Y.

Thus, to provide liquidity in the range [15.625, 17.313], an LP needs only to prepare 80 — 76 = 4 of X. If the price exceeds 17.313, all 4 X of the LP is swapped into 1315.789 — 1250 = 65.798 Y, and then the LP has nothing more to do with the pool, as his/her liquidity is drained.

What if the price stays in the range? It’s exactly what LPs would love to see, as they can earn swapping fees for all transactions in the range! Also, the balance of X will swing between [76, 80] and the balance of Y between [1250, 1315.789].

This might not be obvious, but the example above shows an interesting insight: if the liquidity of one token is provided, only when the token becomes more valuable will it be exchanged for the less valuable one.

…wut? 🤔

Remember that if 4 X is provided within [15.625, 17.313], only when the price of X goes up from 15.625 to 17.313 is 4 X gradually swapped into Y, the less valuable one!

What if the price of X drops back immediately after reaching 17.313? As X becomes less valuable, others are going to exchange Y for X.

The below image illustrates the scenario of DAI/USDC pair with a price range of [1.001, 1.002] well: the pool is always composed entirely of one token on both sides of the tick, while in the middle 1.001499⁶ is of both tokens.

Image source: https://uniswap.org/blog/uniswap-v3/

Similarly, to provide liquidity in a price range < current price, an LP has to prepare a certain amount of Y for others to exchange Y for X within the range.

To wrap up such an interesting feature, we know that:

Only one token is required for range orders.

Only when the current price is within the range of the range order can LP earn trading fees. This is the main reason why most people believe LPs of v3 have to monitor the price more actively to maximize their income, which also means that LPs of v3 have become arbitrageurs 🤯

I will be discussing more the impacts of v3 in 5. Impacts of v3.

⁷ 1.001499988 = √(1.0001 * 1.0002) is the geometric mean of 1.0001 and 1.0002. The implication is that the geometric mean of two prices is the average execution price within the range of the two prices.

Reversible limit orders

As the example in the last section demonstrates, if there is 4 X in range [15.625, 17.313], the 4 X will be completely converted into 65.798 Y when the price goes over 17.313.

We all know that a price can stay in a wide range such as [10, 11] for quite some time, while it’s unlikely so in a narrow range such as [15.625, 15.626].

Thus, if an LP provides liquidity in [15.625, 15.626], we can expect that once the price of X goes over 15.625 and immediately also 15.626, and does not drop back, all X are then forever converted into Y.

The concept of having a targeted price and the order will be executed after the price is crossed is exactly the concept of limit orders! The only difference is that if the range of a range order is not narrow enough, it’s highly possible that the conversion of tokens will be reverted once the price falls back to the range.

As price ranges follow the equation p(i) = 1.0001 ^ i, the range can be quite narrow and a range order can thus effectively serve as a limit order:

When i = 27490, 1.0001²⁷⁴⁹⁰ = 15.6248.⁸

When i = 27491, 1.0001²⁷⁴⁹¹ = 15.6264.⁸

A range of 0.0016 is not THAT narrow but can certainly satisfy most limit order use cases!

⁸ As mentioned previously in note #4, there is a square root in the equation of the price and index, thus the numbers here are for explantion only.

5. Impacts of v3

Higher capital efficiency, LPs become arbitrageurs… as v3 has made tons of radical changes, I’d like to summarize my personal takes of the impacts of v3:

Higher capital efficiency makes one of the most frequently considered indices in DeFi: TVL, total value locked, becomes less meaningful, as 1$ on Uniswap v3 might have the same effect as 100$ or even 2000$ on v2.

The ease of spot exchanging between spot exchanges used to be a huge advantage of spot markets over derivative markets. As LPs will take up the role of arbitrageurs and arbitraging is more likely to happen on v3 itself other than between DEXs, this gap is narrowed … to what extent? No idea though.

LP strategies and the aggregation of NFT of Uniswap v3 liquidity token are becoming the blue ocean for new DeFi startups: see Visor and Lixir. In fact, this might be the turning point for both DeFi and NFT: the two main reasons of blockchain going mainstream now come to the alignment of interest: solving the $$ problem 😏😏😏

In the right venue, which means a place where transaction fees are low enough, such as Optimism, we might see Algo trading firms coming in to share the market of designing LP strategies on Uniswap v3, as I believe Algo trading is way stronger than on-chain strategies or DAO voting to add liquidity that sort of thing.

After reading this article by Parsec.finance: The Dex to Rule Them All, I cannot help but wonder: maybe there is going to be centralized crypto exchanges adopting v3’s approach. The reason is that since orders of LPs in the same tick are executed pro-rata, the endless front-running speeding-competition issue in the Algo trading world, to some degree, is… solved? 🤔

Anyway, personal opinions can be biased and seriously wrong 🙈 I’m merely throwing out a sprat to catch a whale. Having a different voice? Leave your comment down below!

6. Conclusion

That was kinda tough, isn’t it? Glad you make it through here 🥂🥂🥂

There are actually many more details and also a huge section of Oracle yet to be covered. However, since this article is more about features and targeting normal DeFi users, I’ll leave those to the next one; hope there is one 😅

If you have any doubt or find any mistake, please feel free to reach out to me and I’d try to reply AFAP!

Stay tuned and in the meantime let’s wait and see how Uniswap v3 is again pioneering the innovation of DeFi 🌟

Uniswap v3 Features Explained in Depth was originally published in Taipei Ethereum Meetup on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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Ideologies just got mixed into doctrinal basis ...

For my friends who are interested in the Evangelical Theological Society, please take a look at this important message from past president Stan Gundry, who, like me, is vitally interested in the continuing health of the Society. He has given me permission to copy it here.

WHENCE AND WHITHER ETS?
An Open Letter to the Members of ETS
Stanley N. Gundry
President of the Evangelical Theological Society, 1978

The following resolutions were adopted in the last business session of the 2015 national meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society:
(1) We affirm that all persons are created in the image and likeness of God and thus possess inherent dignity and worth.
(2) We affirm that marriage is the covenantal union of one man and one woman, for life.
(3) We affirm that Scripture teaches that sexual intimacy is reserved for marriage as defined above. This excludes all other forms of sexual intimacy.
(4) We affirm that God created men and women, imbued with the distinct traits of manhood and womanhood, and that each is an unchangeable gift of God that constitutes personal identity.
In the immediate aftermath of this business session, many ETS members were deeply troubled that any ETS members would vote against these resolutions. The post-ETS blogs of a few ETS members and the comments of their followers expressed dismay that anyone who claims to be evangelical and subscribes to the Doctrinal Basis of the Society would cast a negative vote.
But there was also a significant minority that opposed and voted against these resolutions. These members were troubled that such resolutions would be introduced, that they were not ruled out of order or at least tabled, and that they were passed by a significant majority of those present and voting. I was among the minority that voted “Nay.”
Why? It is a question that deserves to be answered because I am convinced that the future of ETS depends on our repudiation of what happened in that session and that ETS members must realize that resolutions of this nature are not consistent with the nature of the Society. In fact, the issue at stake is whether or not ETS will remain committed to the original purpose for which ETS was formed. I have not taken even an informal poll of others who voted against the resolutions, but I have discussed the matter with enough members to give me confidence that many members agree that the future of ETS is at stake.
My history within ETS uniquely qualifies me to address the concerns these resolutions raise. I have been immersed in the culture and affairs of ETS since my student days in the 1950s and 1960s. I knew on a first-name basis many of the first-generation ETS members. I was taught by some of them. I have been a full member of the Society since about 1968. I have attended most national meetings since 1970, and in the 1970s I was an active participant in the Midwestern section of ETS, serving also as president of that section and on its leadership committee. Then in 1978 I served as the national president of ETS and planned the program for the 30th Annual Meeting of ETS in collaboration with Dr. Kenneth Kantzer, followed by serving the allotted time on the ETS Executive Committee. Relevant to the concerns at hand, my first-hand knowledge of the workings of ETS and its Constitution, most especially the Purpose and Doctrinal Basis of the Society as stated in the Constitution, and my acquaintance with many of the founders and first-generation members of ETS give me insight into their intentions in forming the Society.
So why did I vote against the resolutions? Because the resolutions went beyond the Doctrinal Basis of the Society and were inconsistent with the clearly stated Purpose of ETS. But I run ahead of myself and it is a bit more complicated than that. So let me start at the beginning, the resolutions themselves.
First, it is unfortunate that the resolutions were presented at the last business meeting and then discussed and voted on as a group. My understanding is that those responsible for the agenda did not anticipate that the resolutions would be controversial and so they were scheduled to be considered in the last business session. This was not inconsistent as such with the ETS Constitution or Bylaws, but in a case like this, members should have had advance warning of the nature of the resolutions and ample opportunity to discuss them among themselves and on the floor of the business meeting. Further, many members had already left the conference or were absent for other reasons. Thus, members could not deliberately consider in advance whether or not voting on such resolutions was even consistent with the Purpose of ETS; and, given the time constraints of the program, there was not sufficient time to debate the merits of the individual resolutions and to vote up or down on each one.
The resolutions were so poorly stated that they needed such careful consideration. For instance, the second resolution ignored the question of biblical grounds for divorce and remarriage. And given the diversity of views on divorce and remarriage within ETS, is this really a question on which ETS should be taking a position even in the form of a resolution? What about the third resolution? Viewed superficially, who could possibly object to that resolution? But looked at more closely, “sexual intimacy” and “all other forms of sexual intimacy” are squishy descriptors. Are they intended to refer to physical sexual intimacy, and if so, are holding hands, kissing, or hugging forbidden? My fundamentalist and separatist father would have thought so, but what about the membership of ETS? Would we have a consensus on that question?
And what about the fourth resolution affirming “distinct traits of manhood and womanhood”? While I suspect all members of ETS (even those of us who self-identify as biblical egalitarians) believe that men and women in many respects are complementary to one another, many of us also believe that the terms “manhood” and “womanhood” are reifications of socially and culturally conditioned patterns of behavior more than they are descriptors of biblically supported male and female characteristics. Rather than being biblically supported, the terms tend to refer to stereotypical lists of alleged gender characteristics to which men and women are expected to conform. Even self-avowed complementarians have no consensus on what constitutes “manhood and womanhood,” so why would a scholarly society like ETS that includes both complementarians and egalitarians even take such a resolution seriously?
So I return to the opening statement of this first point—scheduling the resolutions for consideration as a group at the second business meeting without prior notice meant there was not adequate time to consider and debate the merits and wording of the resolutions and it made it impossible to carefully consider whether or not voting on such resolutions was even consistent with the Purpose of ETS.
Second, this broader issue needs to be considered by the Society. Is it even appropriate for resolutions to be introduced, debated, and voted on that go beyond the Doctrinal Basis and officially stated Purpose of the Society? I believe the answer is a clear and unequivocal “No!” Members tend to forget that ETS was never intended to have a doctrinal statement to which members had to subscribe. We have a “Doctrinal Basis,” one that originally had one affirmation: The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs. Years later, the Trinitarian statement was added to the Doctrinal Basis out of concern that anti-Trinitarians such as Jehovah’s Witnesses might successfully claim membership in ETS. But even with that addition, it remains a Doctrinal Basis, not a doctrinal statement. Some members seem not to understand and/or remember the significance of the fact that we function as a scholarly society with a Doctrinal Basis. But even many who remember that we have a Doctrinal Basis all too easily and sloppily refer to it using the phrases “doctrinal basis” and “doctrinal statement” interchangeably, suggesting they do not really understand (or perhaps accept) the significance of the distinction. But this distinction is at the very heart and Purpose of ETS. A bit of historical context will be useful here.
When ETS was formed in 1949, evangelical biblical and theological scholarship was just beginning to emerge from its decline in the dark days of the modernist-fundamentalist debate and the loss of so many mainline denominations and associated colleges, seminaries, and missionary agencies to the takeover of these institutions by theological liberals. For at least fifteen or twenty years, fundamentalists and evangelicals at the local church and grassroots level had a profound suspicion of serious biblical and theological scholarship. But in the mid and late 1940s, this began to change as scholars who were willing to self-identify as fundamentalists (in the classic meaning of that term) and/or evangelical began to find each other, come together, and realize that in spite of all that divided them, they held one thing in common—the Bible and the Bible alone in its entirety is God’s Word written, it speaks truthfully on whatever it intends to say and teach, and hence it is the only rule for Christian faith and practice. Eventually in 1949 many of the fundamentalist and evangelical scholars who shared this conviction agreed there was a need for a scholarly society where members shared the same basis on which conservative scholarship and research should be discussed and debated. On that Doctrinal Basis, they formed the Evangelical Theological Society.
It is easy to forget, or perhaps many ETS members do not know, how deep and sometimes rancorous the divisions were that otherwise separated these same scholars. These divisions ranged from matters of church polity to biblical hermeneutics to the various loci of systematic theology. In fact, dispensational and amillennial theologians were accustomed to trading charges that the hermeneutical methods and theological systems of the other undermined the authority of Scripture. Scholars who practiced secondary separation risked their reputations if they joined with other evangelical scholars who practiced only primary separation or who were inclusivists. At least four of the ETS presidents in the first twenty years of the society would have been sympathetic to what is now known as biblical egalitarianism, a matter over which ETS members today have profound disagreements. Yet these scholars came together in ETS as did Pentecostals and cessationists, believer-immersionists and paedo-sprinklers, Arminians and Wesleyans and Reformed and Lutheran, as well as those who held to congregational, or presbyterial, or episcopal church polity.
A quick scan of the listing of ETS presidents over the past sixty-seven years and the institutions they represented makes the same point. Schools represented range from Wycliffe College, to Dallas Theological Seminary, to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, to Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, to Moody Bible Institute. The theological spectrum represented by ETS presidents is also quite remarkable. As I look at the list I can identify at least twelve presidents associated with one of five or six varieties of Presbyterian and Reformed communions, thirteen who were dispensationalists, five who were covenant premillennialists, one Pentecostal, three Wesleyans, and twelve sympathetic with biblical egalitarianism.
Throughout its history, ETS has been a demonstration of the Purpose for which ETS was formed: The Purpose of the Society shall be to foster conservative biblical scholarship by providing a medium for the oral exchange and written expression of thought and research in the general field of the theological disciplines as centered in the Scriptures.
So I return to the opening question and statement of my second point—“Is it even appropriate for resolutions to be introduced, debated, and voted on that go beyond the Doctrinal Basis and officially stated Purpose of the Society?” I believe the answer is a clear and unequivocal “No!” Why? Because such resolutions are inconsistent with the Purpose of ETS and the reason why we have a Doctrinal Basis and not a doctrinal statement.
Third, the introduction and passage of the four-fold resolution package and the internet conversations following the 67th Annual Meeting are symptomatic of the desire of some ETS members to move the Society in the direction of precise, doctrinal, and interpretive clarity and definition, ideally in the form of a doctrinal statement and other “position statements.” I am trained not only as a theologian but as a church historian; consequently I am inclined to be skeptical of conspiracy theories unless there is compelling evidence. Nevertheless, based on the evidence, some of us are now wondering if there is a conspiracy within ETS to:
1) ease out biblical egalitarians,
2) exclude women from the leadership of ETS,
3) let qualified women scholars know they are not part of “the old boys network,”
4) shut down discussion of contentious ethical and theological issues,
5) marginalize those who do not come out on the “right side” of those issues,
6) “pack” the nominating committee so as to get their compatriots in the positions of leadership,
7) question the evangelical and inerrantist bona fides of those who ask hard questions and come up with answers that most of us are not persuaded by, and
8) propose and pass a poorly framed set of four resolutions that makes the Society sound more like the Family Research Council or the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood than the intentionally diverse “medium for the oral and written expressions of thought and research in the general field of the theological disciplines as centered in the Scriptures” as stated in the ETS Purpose statement.
Lest I be misunderstood, I do believe that theological boundaries are important within the church and its institutions, and as an evangelical Protestant, I believe it is appropriate for churches and parachurch organizations to draw those boundary lines, based on their understanding of Scripture. But ETS is not a church and it was formed to serve a clearly defined purpose. It is significant that it takes an 80% majority vote to amend only three things in the ETS constitution—the Doctrinal Basis, the Society’s Purpose, and the requirement for an 80% majority to amend the first two items. The founders of our Society could hardly have made it clearer that they regarded the Purpose and Doctrinal Basis of ETS to be essential to the organization they were creating.
Why is it important to guard the integrity of the original Purpose and Basis of ETS? I will answer with another question. What better forum is there for collegial discussion and debate of complementarianism and egalitarianism, open theism and classical theism and all points in between, eschatology, the “new perspective” on Paul, and yes, even the question of whether same-sex “marriages” can be defended biblically, than a forum where we have agreed to appeal to the sole source of authority for Christian faith and practice, the Bible, God’s Word written?
Copyright © 2016 by Stanley N. Gundry. Used by permission. All rights reserved.