One of the truisms of intellectual exchange is the need to represent other persons’ views correctly so that they recognize their position or argument. Even when you disagree — or especially when you do — for debate to clarify more than antagonize you need to present your opponent’s views in such a way that he would recognize and even affirm them.
With that tepid truth out of the way, I find John Frame’s list of Escondido Theology affirmations, which he produces in the preface to his book, to be the intellectual equivalent of a Picasso portrait in one of his abstract phases. You can make out the eye, the ear, another eye, a neck, but the features are out of place and aside from the color the overall effect borders on grotesque.
Frame’s portrait of the Escondido theology is similarly abstract but lacks the pretty colors. When I look through the list (below), I recognize a faint resemblance — a whiff of teaching about preaching, a few strands of thought about Scripture, a dab of color about the duties of magistrates. But his painting is a distortion (whether intentional or not) and an abstraction.
Before responding to Frame’s points, I’d like to ask the help of Old Life readers. I am pasting below first Frame’s list of Escondido affirmations. Then I have rearranged these “theses” under various themes. What I would like help on is whether this effort to order Frame’s cubist rendering makes sense. If so, I plan in future posts to rephrase Frame’s distillations to help both critics and affirmers of 2k alike.
Here’s Frame’s list:
• It is wrong to try to make the gospel relevant to its hearers.
• Scripture teaches about Christ, his atonement, and our redemption from sin, but not about how to apply that salvation to our current problems.
• Those who try to show the application of Scripture to the daily problems of believers are headed toward a Christless Christianity.
• Anything we say about God is at best only an analogy of the truth and is therefore at least partly false.
• There is no immediate experience of God available to the believer.
• The only experience of God available to the believer is in public worship.
• Meetings of the church should be limited to the preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments.
• In worship, we “receive” from God, but should not seek to “work” for God.
• The “cultural mandate” of Gen. 1:28 and 9:7 is no longer in effect.
• The Christian has no biblical mandate to seek changes in the social, cultural, or political order.
• Divine sovereignty typically eliminates the need for human responsibility.
• The gospel is entirely objective and not at all subjective.
• We should take no interest in our inner feelings or subjective life.
• Preaching should narrate the history of redemption, but should never appeal to Bible characters as moral or spiritual examples.
• Preaching “how tos” and principles of practical living is man-centered.
• To speak of a biblical worldview, or biblical principles for living, is to misuse the Bible.
• Nobody should be considered Reformed unless they agree with everything in the Reformed confessions and theologians of the 16th and 17th centuries.
• We should not agree to discuss any theological topics except the ones discussed by Reformed thinkers in the 16th and 17th centuries.
• Jonathan Edwards and D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones were not Reformed.
• Theology is not the application of Scripture, but a historical investigation into Reformed traditions.
• There is no difference between being biblical and being Reformed.
• To study the Bible is to study it as the Reformed tradition has studied it.
• God’s principles for governing society are found, not in Scripture, but in natural law.
• Natural law is to be determined, not by Scripture, but by human reason and conscience.
• Scripture promises the believer no temporal blessings until the final judgment.
• We can do nothing to “advance” the Kingdom of God. The coming of the Kingdom, since the ascension of Christ, is wholly future.
• The Sabbath pertains only to worship, not to daily work. So worship should occur on the Lord’s Day, but work need not cease.
• Only those who accept these principles can consistently believe in justification by faith alone.
• Reformed believers must maintain an adversary relationship with American evangelicals.
• Worship should be very traditional, without any influence of contemporary culture.
• Only those who accept these principles can be considered truly Reformed.
• These principles, however, represent only desirable “emphases.” There are exceptions.
And here is my first attempt to make these points coherent:
WORSHIP/PIETY
• It is wrong to try to make the gospel relevant to its hearers.
• Worship should be very traditional, without any influence of contemporary culture.
• The Sabbath pertains only to worship, not to daily work. So worship should occur on the Lord’s Day, but work need not cease.
• There is no immediate experience of God available to the believer.
• The only experience of God available to the believer is in public worship.
• Meetings of the church should be limited to the preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments.
• In worship, we “receive” from God, but should not seek to “work” for God.
• We should take no interest in our inner feelings or subjective life.
• Preaching should narrate the history of redemption, but should never appeal to Bible characters as moral or spiritual examples.
• Preaching “how tos” and principles of practical living is man-centered.
• Those who try to show the application of Scripture to the daily problems of believers are headed toward a Christless Christianity.
THEOLOGY/METHOD
• Divine sovereignty typically eliminates the need for human responsibility.
• The gospel is entirely objective and not at all subjective.
• Anything we say about God is at best only an analogy of the truth and is therefore at least partly false.
• The “cultural mandate” of Gen. 1:28 and 9:7 is no longer in effect.
• Theology is not the application of Scripture, but a historical investigation into Reformed traditions.
HISTORY
• There is no difference between being biblical and being Reformed.
• To study the Bible is to study it as the Reformed tradition has studied it.
• Only those who accept these principles can be considered truly Reformed.
• Nobody should be considered Reformed unless they agree with everything in the Reformed confessions and theologians of the 16th and 17th centuries.
• We should not agree to discuss any theological topics except the ones discussed by Reformed thinkers in the 16th and 17th centuries.
• Jonathan Edwards and D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones were not Reformed.
POLITICS/ETHICS
• God’s principles for governing society are found, not in Scripture, but in natural law.
• Natural law is to be determined, not by Scripture, but by human reason and conscience.
• Only those who accept these principles can consistently believe in justification by faith alone.
• The Christian has no biblical mandate to seek changes in the social, cultural, or political order.
• To speak of a biblical worldview, or biblical principles for living, is to misuse the Bible.
• Scripture teaches about Christ, his atonement, and our redemption from sin, but not about how to apply that salvation to our current problems.
BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION
• We can do nothing to “advance” the Kingdom of God. The coming of the Kingdom, since the ascension of Christ, is wholly future.
• Scripture promises the believer no temporal blessings until the final judgment.
WISDOM
• These principles, however, represent only desirable “emphases.” There are exceptions.
• Reformed believers must maintain an adversary relationship with American evangelicals.
If this is a fair arrangement, I’ll be examining each of these topics in subsequent posts.
One initial observation: for all of the hullabaloo about 2ker’s views about politics, transformationalism, and the Lordship of Christ outside the church, what appears to animate Frame most is worship. And on worship he is the most on thin Reformed ice. He may prefer Calvin’s Geneva for politics. But that preference would likely end once he realized that he could not play the organ during worship, not to mention that the consistory would want to have a frank chat with him about his arguments for praise bands. I suspect that the Geneva authorities might have put Frame under house arrest for his views.
Old Life 
John Frame is no different from most Reformed folks in that he picks and chooses what he likes from Calvin. He claims to like Calvin’s political culture, but his views on music, not so much.
I have no vested interest in saying who’s Reformed and who is not. But I think it’s clear that Lloyd-Jones never believed or taught in effective definite atonement, even though many folks assume that he did. The presumption often becomes that, if you believe one “Reformed” thing, you must also believe the gospel that God is both just and justifier of all for whom Christ died.
dgh is asking how many threads fit together. To answer that, perhaps we need to explore which bit is most important, not simply to John Frame but to all of us. I can think of nothing more foundational than the complaint that Calvin’s view of sovereignty eliminates “human accountability”. Instead of exploring the idea of “conditional vs unconditional” in historic covenant theology, I would simply stipulate that Reformed confessional views of sovereignty ARE IN ANTITHESIS with
Arminian definitions of “responsibility”.
Evangelical Objection #1: “If your salvation is all a work of God, leaving you out of the picture entirely, then you are nothing more than a robot, a shell, and God is controlling your actions in a way that your only accounting for the work of God is a fatalistic resignation to the fact that God is the only party to your salvation, and you are, at best, a spectator, and at worst, no more involved in
your salvation than a stone or stick of wood, wholly unconscious.
Evangelical Objection #2: “To confess salvation as a total work of God is to deny human responsibility.The reason we are truly significant is that our actions are our actions, not God’s.
Romans 9: 14:
“What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on who I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.
For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: ‘I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name would be proclaimed in all the earth.’ Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. One of
you will then say to me: ‘Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?’.
But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes, and some for common use?”
The scandal expressed by wicked unbelief to God’s eternal decree is the same as the scandal of the cross. Both the preaching of the cross and the teaching of God’s eternal decree of election produce the same offended reaction in wicked men, because they both speak of the fact
that salvation is wholly a work of God. God is working out His purpose in election: “Not by works, but by him who calls”.
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What did Calvin say, and is Calvin right? These should be two different questions. http://americanvision.org/4973/hortons-contrived-empire-calvin-denied-christendom/
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My first thought on reading this list — other than shock and sadness at the lack of charity evinced in its explicit falsehoods — is that it aside form a few anachronisms, it would be a perfect Erasmian response to Luther’s reform and the 95 thesis.
Seriously, the lack of charity and accuracy here brings me great sorrow, as a Westminster California grad, former student of Frame, and friend of Horton and many current faculty members. Can we not have an open and honest discussion of those things about which we agree?
[I thought for a moment based on the title of this post that it would be about the Zylstra / VanDrunen back and forth.]
Sigh.
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“95 Theses”
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If Professor Frame has read the whole corpus of theology from Westminster West, more power to him. I haven’t, but I have read enough of Scott Clark’s work to identify some of Frame’s criticisms. Should his criticisms put everyone’s noses out of joint? Probably not. His critiques should be taken as that and not threaten anyone’s views. Rather, they should allow everyone to take a fresh look and see if there is room for correction. WCF XXXI.2 gives to councils and synods the power to determine “controversies of faith, and cases of conscience.” In section 3, it acknowledges that synods and councils may err. With that in mind, maybe a council, synod or assembly similiar to the Westminster Assembly should be called to sort out these matters.
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Richard, what matters need to be settled? So far, 2k is entirely within the Reformed churches teaching. It may not agree with individual theologians or their particular constructions, but no one has yet to establish how 2k violates the creeds or catechisms. What is clear is that Frame does not follow the confessions and catechisms on worship.
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Brian, after a lot of interactions with Frame, I take this as less an instance of lacking charity than a mental tick, sort of like an intellectual Turrets Syndrome. I’m mainly serious. I don’t think Frame realizes how he sounds.
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I don’t think John Frame is post-mill, but I do see some resemblance with Gary North in North’s book on “common grace”
“Too many modem Christians worship in the tabernacles of the escape religion, the other alternative
to the dominion religion that is required by the Bible. All they want is to be left alone by the Godhaters. The best way to achieve this goal, they erroneously believe, is to avoid confrontation with unbelievers, especially political confrontation. They therefore remove themselves from politics.
They also feel compelled to justify their retreat from responsibility by affirming the existence of a
supposed God-given right of power-seeking Godhaters to impose “neutral” humanist civil law on
Christians. These Christians defend humanist civil law in the name of freedom. They say that biblical
law in the hands of Christians will always lead to tyranny.”
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Hart: Isn’t this the same criticism that Baus has against you?
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GAS, that’s one way of looking at it, though I’m not sure that a blog is the same as a book. At the same time, I have no idea how Frame, for instance, gets to the idea that 2k holds it wrong to make the gospel relevant to believers. It is different from saying that neo-Calvinists want to redeem television, especially since some neo-Cals actually say they want to redeem television.
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Darryl,
I have heard that Frame reviews my book, Dual Citizens, in there somewhere. Since you have a copy you are in a unique position to confirm, or disconfirm, that suspicion.
Her life is in your hand, Dude.
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GAS, I won’t presume to put words into Baus’s mouth, but after recently discussing with him Darryl’s latest in New Horizons, he seems to hear “religious neutrality” when someone says “adiaphora.” Which sounds like something someone with Framian ears might say. But when I think “religious neutrality” I think something like the Evangelical Free denom which practices both credo- and paedobaptism. When I think adiaphora I think a variety of political convictions amongst those who are precisionist instead of latitudinarian about baptism.
But this one bedevils: “The ‘cultural mandate’ of Gen. 1:28 and 9:7 is no longer in effect.” Uh, yes it is. People keep having babies every day. Though some Reformed Protestants could stand to benefit from the doctrines of limits and moderation.
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Hart: I don’t know what redeeming TV means except if it means, from a neo-cal perspective, programming from a continental philosophical perspective. In fact, I believe I saw a TV pilot recently with that theme… can’t remember the name.
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Zrim: Sure, I’m sure it’s all about definitions.
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Pot meet kettle.
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Todd, bon mots reek if settled.
Please explain.
BTW, Frame does actually talk about juggling in worship.
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DGH-
Why not just organize Frame’s list under the obvious categories: the situational, the normative, and the existential;)
Oh, and, “Theology is not the application of Scripture, but a historical investigation into Reformed traditions”
Looked in my notes from Horton’s class: “Theology is the ongoing reflection of God and divine things with the Word of God as its object”
…hmm…there must be lots of things going on in the duders head…
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typo: “of God and divine things” should be “on God and divine things”
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G.W. Bromily wrote: Vilification is often a more potent weapon of argumentation. (Thomas Cranmer – Theologian)
I think Frame’s mischaracterizations of the positions of his opponent (which he seems to regard WSC) is just a subtler form of vilification., and, as to the persuasion of the untutored, maybe more effective.
Sad…
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Eric Metaxas yesterday at the “national prayer” breakfast “taking a stand”—-“god wants to love us all, can we all just accept Him, can’t we all do that, can’t we do it for our country?”
mcmark: You wouldn’t want your “confessional differences” with Mother Teresa turn you into a sectarian fundamentalist who has no “influence on the culture”, would you?
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What is sad, is that people like me, who are still learning about the Reformed tradition, will end up confused or viewing particular Reformed people as Reformed in name only and a bad influence. I have enjoyed listening to some of the people from Westminster Sem. CA, but I’m thinking some will be directed away from this institution and its professors because of this.
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Hmm…having attended WSC within the last decade, the description fits about as well as OJ Simpson’s glove…when he tried it on in court.
Thanks for taking the time to work through this, Dr. Hart. I look forward to your interaction with it.
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Fix,
As in Fix of Bowie?
Greetings and cheers…
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The issues I mentioned in my original comment deal with the critique of what Frame believes is taught at Westminster in California, which go beyond 2k matters, as well as your critque of Frame’s fidelity to the regulative principle. Rather than continue to argue back and forth about these issues, find a way to settle these matters. Have Frame’s presbytery evaluate his teachings. I think the history of the church, as well as the WCF, gives power to the assembly of theologians and pastors to judge differences of opinion. As far was worship goes, he believes that he is faithful to the regulative principle, but understands and applies it in non-traditional ways. Frame’s first priority is what Scripture teaches above what is consistent with Reformed tradition. He learned this from Murray at WTS, as did, I’m sure, Strimple and Shepherd. I had all of them for theology at WTS and their lectures focused on the teaching of Scripture first.
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Richard,
If Frame and all his worship children could tell us what the regulative principle really is – i.e. define it as does the WS – I might agree. But so far they either can’t or won’t.
And if he can’t tell us what the reformed position is, he is incompetent to critique it on the basis of Scripture. To be sure, like a blindfolded child at a birthday party, he might hit the pinata occasionally, but it still boils down to a hit or miss proposition, hardly the basis for a genuine presbyterian theological methodology, never mind the scriptural.
DGH
Tourette’s no?
Thank you
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I don’t know what it is, but as I read over Frame’s list, the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz keeps popping into my head. I feel like my subconcious is trying to get a message through to me about what Frame’s critique is really made of, but I just can’t quite put my finger on it…Any suggestions welcome.
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Jeffrey,
I’d give you a helpful answer…
if I only had a brain!
Where’s Ray Bolger when we need him?
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Mark
Does anyone wholly follow Calvin’s views? Should anyone wholly follow them? Calvin is not an inspired writer of Scripture… not even close.
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Give it a rest John T- Calvin is certainly not as inspired by the Holy Ghost as you are but he was a much better theologian and accurate interpreter of the scriptures than you; it seems you still do not get the fact that you are wearing your biblicism on your sleeve. And what do you hope to accomplish by your post when the majority of those who frequent this site are heirs of the Calvinist and reformation heritage? Do you have delusions of prophetic granduer?
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J-Y
Personal attacks betray a struggling theology and an ungodly spirit. I am happy to be called a biblicist. I stand in the same biblicist tradition as Calvin and many others (some cited above) who make Scripture their final authority; anything other is hetrodox.
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John T,
I’m wondering how you would give pastoral exhortation or encouragement to one who has a struggling theology and ungodly spirit- would you excommunicate? Just exactly how would you handle the situation?
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John T,
I’m also confused over whether you are with Calvin or against Calvin. It seems you try to mix and mesh the various faith traditions of the Christian faith. That is one of the problems that the old life web site addresses all the time. And that is why they take a stand against the Gospel Coalition- at least that is the way I understand it. You come across to me as one who has a struggling theology too- you also seem to have this hard-nosed form of pietism to your theology that I find rather confusing. Will the real John T please give us an explanation. I have learned to get comfortable in my Lutheran skin- even amongst Calvinists.
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John T.,
I don’t think biblicism is a good thing. Scott Clark accused many in the Reformed tradition as being Narcissus Reformed (pages 17-26 in RECOVERING THE REFORMED CONFESSION). Here is a sample: “And so many Reformed folk unintentionally and unwittingly have become narcissists in the way they read the Bible and do theology. This way of reading Scripture has been well described as “biblicism.” The earliest use of the word ‘biblicism’ in English occurred in 1827 in a work by Sophei Finnegan in criticism of “biblicism.” In 1874 J.J. van Osterzee defined it as “idolatry of the letter.” In theological literature, “biblicism” has most often been used derisively to describe approaches that ignore general revelation in the interpretation of Scripture. This obscurantism takes different forms. In some cases the wrong text is used to prove a doctrine. In other cases, a biblical text is interpreted to teach physics or astronomy (e.g., geocentrism), or the Scriptures are read in isolation from the Christian tradition.” So, “biblicism,” not a good thing.
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Regarding the individual as interpreter of the Bible:
Furthermore, no individual is sufficient unto himself. Peter Wallace summarizes Calvin’s attitude in this regard: “Heinrich Bullinger once sent to John Calvin a book he had written with an apologetic comment, suggesting that Calvin really didn’t need to read it since he already knew everything in it. Calvin responded with a passionate rejection of Bullinger’s attitude. Calvin insisted that he needed Bullinger to keep his own thinking in line. To paraphrase Calvin’s letter: ‘by myself I’m a heretic.’ “[9] Confessional theology binds the church together as a corporate entity, and so represents a radical challenge to radical individualism. (The Ordained Servant, BIBLICAL THEOLOGY AND THE CONFESSING CHURCH, PART 2 by Gregory E. Reynolds)
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Jack
There are two positions (and extremes) which are clearly wrong: firstly being bound by an authority other than Scripture about Scripture and secondly refusing to listen to anyone other than self. Calvin was guilty of neither. I am grateful for the guidance of creeds, confessions and commentators but they are that – guides and not final authorities. We all must search the Scriptures to see if these things are so.
The proper ‘biblicism’ is that which makes understanding Scripture paramount, living under Scripture imperative, and the authority of Scripture final…. all achived through dependence on the indwelling Spirit received at new birth.
Re ‘Confessional theology binds the church together as a corporate entity’
Confessional theology has singularly failed to hold the church together – witness the many different confessions and the vast number of churches with no confession. The truth is the Word of God and the Spirit of God are the only means of holding the church together; the apostolic word taught into the heart by the Spirit is the basis of all unity.
The Bible knows nothing of confessions of faith. Their existence reveals a lack of confidence in the Word and Spirit. Where they are given ipso facto final authority they usurp the place of Word and Spirit and become a tool of unbelief. The suggestion that a confession binds the church together reveals a very poor grasp of what the church is and how it is held together – to say nothing, as I have noted, of their singular failure to do so. When David was old and getting cold they tried to heat him up and revive him with young virgins – it was an exercise in futility. Where life in the Spirit is absent or dying no confessional young virgin will maintain life.
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John,
What makes an individual a better interpreter of Scripture than a consensus of individuals as expressed in a confession? Calvin is decrying the individualistic approach and affirming the consensus approach. Embracing a confession doesn’t elevate it above Scripture by any means. It’s just that personal interpretations of the faith bear a greater burden of proof, given that every one has one and, alone even with the aid of the Spirit, one is more susceptible to error than a church confession. Yes, legitimate questions exist between some confessions, but that doesn’t help the cause of the individual interpreter.
What were the traditions that Paul admonished Timothy, Titus, and others to pass on to other faithful men? He could have just said, “pass on the Scripture to faithful men.”
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“The Bible knows nothing of confessions of faith. Their existence reveals a lack of confidence in the Word and Spirit. . . .”
John,
Everybody believes the Bible – including for starters, the Roman church, the JWs and the 7th Day Adventists. Why even the guy down at the corner bar believes the Bible – is a bunch of bunk.
All the while Scripture itself tells us repeatedly that that in a multitude of counselors there is safety (Prov). Much more the pastoral epistles tell us to teach and preach sound doctrine, if we are not to confess any number of things about God, Christ and man in the NT.
Who you gonna believe?
IOW we are called, churches are called, in Scripture to confess our faith, to testify in what we believe for defensive, as well as offensive reasons. Hence creeds, catechisms and confessions (confessio – I believe).
They are 1. subordinate to Scripture and 2. in obedience to Scripture, much more 3. inescapable.
And we know the last, because of the respective confessions we are all making in this combox re. Scripture and its relation to or the lawfulness of subordinate doctrinal standards. One could, I suppose, get outside the box by refusing to comment, but that would in its own way, would it not, be an anti-confession confession?
The problem again with biblicism is that it has a problem with both Scripture and reason, i.e it contradicts, if not explict Scripture, its good and necessary consequences and two, it contradicts its own principles and presuppositions. That is while Scripture is the supreme authority, it is not the only authority. To deny the first is fatal, to deny the second is to disobey that authority.
But for those who believe that the church of Christ is called to something more than biblicistic fundamentalism Acts 20:26,27 is definitive:
Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.
cordially
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Jack
What Paul told Timothy to pass on was the gospel, ‘the sound doctrine’ or if you like the apostolic teaching. Interesting that Paul didn’t right a confession of faith. He believed in the power of the apostolic Word and the given Holy Spirit. Scripture, such as we now have it was not, as you know, available at that point.
‘What makes an individual a better interpreter of Scripture than a consensus of individuals as expressed in a confession’. Just as well the reformers didn’t believe this. The answer is neither an individual nor a group of individuals consenting is reliable – only the work of the Spirit enlightens and only the indwelling of the Spirit unites.
Jack, you say the confession functions as a secondary authority. I don’t find this to be the case; in theory yeas but in practtice no. All too often consciences rest complacent on the confession rather than being captive to the Word of God. Where the confession is truly secondary, functioning as a guide, I have no quibble. Of course we all have our confession and ought to. But that is just the point, the confession is mine and not someone elses. I answer to God for what I believe and do and why I believe and do it. It will not do on the day of judgement to refer to the confession of another, even a group confession.
Bob
‘Scripture itself tells us repeatedly that that in a multitude of counselors there is safety’. With this I do not disagree. I have regularly affirmed this. Though even in many counsellors safety need not lie. What if your counsellors are the Mormon church or the RC Church? However, the question is not one of rampant individualism but the proper basis of authority and the revealed way God creates and unifies his church.
I must go at the moment but will address other points later.
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JMiller. I think the Scottish term (John Thomson correct me) for the various denominations of Presbyterians sprung up—all of which hold to the WCF–is “split P’s”. (Or maybe that’s the American term.) You have grape juice-drinking, deaconess-ordaining, psalm-singing, and yet you have communion wine, deacons only, hymns and psalms (with mostly hymns), as well as church dancing, KJV-using amillenials, postmillenials, theonomists, presuppositionalists, covenant of works or no covenant of works so-called. How do the Confessions bind people together?
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John wrote: Of course we all have our confession and ought to. But that is just the point, the confession is mine and not someone elses. I answer to God for what I believe and do and why I believe and do it. It will not do on the day of judgement to refer to the confession of another, even a group confession.
You’re mixing apples and oranges. Church confessions/catechisms represent a system of doctrine as taught in Scripture. They function to aid believers in their faith and practice so as to better conform their lives to Scriptural truth. My personal confession before God is most simply this, I have no other plea than Jesus shed his blood for me. That confession of faith in Christ alone by God’s grace alone secures my salvation.
You seem to be hung up that someone refers to a confessional article when explaining what he believes to be scriptural, as if somehow that isn’t authentic. Is it really necessary to reinvent the wheel for every doctrinal question?
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Hi Eliza,
The quote is Confessional theology binds the church together as a corporate entity. It doesn’t guarantee unity among believes, but does unite a church in a common confession of faith. Many individuals can and do hold the Scripture to be their ultimate authority, recognizing no confessions as necessary. That approach doesn’t guarantee unity or agreement either (far from it). It just makes every man a pope.
cheers…
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Rght on, brother Jack- I guess John T’s pastoral counsel to me would be one of shunning and ignoring. From my quarrels with John T. in the past I have found out he is a pastor but I forget which denomination he was ordained in. I get the impression he does not like to be labeled and caricatured with some faith tradition (like Anabaptist or Eeeeevangelical) but prefers to think that he can be independant from “tradition” and does not seem to think that “tradition” is not always a bad thing. However, I should let John T. speak for himself.
One question I would like to ask John T. is what he thinks of liturgy in a worship service. My impression is that he prefers a rather “free flowing” and contemporary worship service and is in the revivalist tradition. But, I may be wrong.
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shunning and ignorning, ie., “don’t throw your pearls before swine,” like me.
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Jack
‘You seem to be hung up that someone refers to a confessional article when explaining what he believes to be scriptural, as if somehow that isn’t authentic. Is it really necessary to reinvent the wheel for every doctrinal question?’
Within a confessional group there is clearly room for discussion on what the confession says and means. However, to quote the confession as defence for a doctrine is very weak and to do so in discussion with someone who is non-confessional all but useless. Actually, it is necessary to reinvent the wheel with every doctrinal question. It is necessary to back it up from Scripture – the faith document. I find too many who can cite the confession but have no clue about how Scripture supports their contention (or doesn’t). Further, they are not concerned about what Scripture says, the confession says it and that is enough. This is appalling. The truly healthy way to approach questions is to search the Scriptures.
T-Y
You are too concerned about deciding how to categorize me rather than interacting with my contentions. Who I am is of little consequence whether what I say is biblically warranted is the issue.
Let me ask a question. Or rather, two questions. Does Scripture give us guidance on how we should ‘church’ in times when there are no apostles and Christianity is in religious confusion and apostasy? If so what is its guidance?
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JT –
wrote: to quote the confession as defence for a doctrine is very weak and to do so in discussion with someone who is non-confessional all but useless
Really?! That sounds breathtakingly condescending. To keep it simple: If someone asked what justification means and in reply one offered this sentence as an initial summary – “It means We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings…” (Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion-XI) you would discount that as weak and useless? I don’t think I have anything else to say…
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Jack
Your citation from the confession is a definition of justification and not a defence of it. The believer wants to know where this is taught in Scripture. I would hope this is true of both the confessional believer and the non-confessional.
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JT-
You crack me up, my friend. No, my questioner simply asked what justification meant, i.e. the definition. The answer was an initial summary. Do you disagree with that definition? By the way, there are Scripture references galore supplied by the Westminster Assembly for each of the chapters and articles in the Westminster Confession of Faith to give the relevant chapter and verse “defense.”
And, if one is to give a defense of justification, mustn’t he first define (initial summary?) what he is about to defend with Scripture?… of course, unless you are taking the position that every time the question arises one must reinvent the wheel by first seeing if there even is such a thing as justification in the Bible before defining it, and then only defining it with an exact verse. But if so, then maybe we shouldn’t use our own words to make any case or defense of doctrine. (after all, why are your or my mere words any better the those of a confession?) We should only read aloud verses to one another! (tongue in cheek…)
cheers…
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John, since you haven’t answered mine, but gone to answer others, I am going to blithely assume that you can’t and continue to press the point. (Not really. It’s a done deal.)
“”What if your counsellors are the Mormon church or the RC Church?””
You can only ask this by assuming that your private unwritten unconscious confession tells you that Mormons or Romanists are not Bible believing bodies. But you again deny confessions. End of story.
“I must go at the moment but will address other points later.”
I will again be bold, though you might consider it arrogant.
You cannot and will not substantively address any other points later. That is because you hold a position that contradicts itself.
You must answer with direct quotes of Scripture or you must remain silent in order for your thesis of fundamentalistic biblicism to hold any kind of water or be seriously respected and engaged by your correspondents here who disagree with you.
Not only do I think you can’t do it, it is impossible, much more your position is contrary to Scripture.
This is, after all, the year of our Lord 2012
Been there, done that, as they say.
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Darryl:
I don’t have John’s book (yet).
Does the original bullet-list, as cited, contain “exact” quotes from John? Or “paraphrases” of John?
DPV
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Viking, those are direct quotes.
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