Perhaps the ruckus over Jason Stellman’s decision has passed but one response by Peter Leithart needs some attention, if only because it highlights a general problem in Reformed and Presbyterian circles. It is the way that Reformed Protestantism sits lightly with folks who are officers in Reformed and Presbyterian communions. Not to pick on anyone in particular, but also not to hide behind vagaries, this problem is not Leithart’s by himself. It is also part of the gift mix that John Frame and Tim Keller have bequeathed to many of their readers and fans.
The problem specifically is one identifying more with the Bible than tradition, relying more on exegesis than the common confession of a Reformed communion, exploring more existing church and intellectual concerns than mining paths trod by saints in the past.
Here is Leithart’s version of this impulse (in the context of Stellman’s decision):
Confessionalists, after all, place a great deal of emphasis on the tradition of Reformed theology, embodied especially in Reformed confessions. Throughout the debates of the past few years, I have presented mainly biblical arguments for my positions, and kept historical concerns subordinate. My opponents have typically been much more interested in testing my views by the Westminster Confession. The touchstone of their theology is a piece of the Reformed tradition as much as, and in some cases more than, Scripture. Confessionalists claim that the Confession provides standard exegesis of Scripture, to which Reformed theologians have to submit. Confessional Reformed theology thus has a natural affinity for Rome that biblicists like me don’t share. Confessionalists want the Confession to be a paper Pope. It’s not surprising that some find the paper Pope inadequate, and go searching for a live one. (If, as some will charge, Scripture is a paper Pope, it’s one whose ring I gladly kiss.)
Behind this Confessionalist elevation of tradition (in practice, over Scripture) is a broader tendency related to what I have critiqued elsewhere as “tragic metaphysics,” the notion that the original and old is necessarily preferable to the derived and the new. In its Trinitarian dogma, Christianity says the opposite: The Son, though He comes from the Father, is equal to the Father in every respect; in fact, there is no pure, unsupplemented origin, because there can be no Father without a Son. It says the opposite too in its eschatology: The golden age is not lost in the unrecoverable past but ahead of us in an eschatological future. Its Trinitarian theology and eschatology give Christian faith an open-endedness that can be unsettling. It’s unnerving to have to seek foundations in a city that is yet to come. (According to Fergus Kerr, this is exactly what Thomas says –Thomas is an “eschatological foundationalist.”)
When I read an argument like this I wonder whether someone like Leithart could just as easily minister in a Free Methodist Church as among Presbyterians. After all, lots of Protestants claim to be biblical and don’t let the past affect what is best for the church today. Or what about the Southern Baptist Convention? Is that set of congregations just as good as the United Reformed Churches? Or could it be that when push comes to shove, a fellow like Leithart really does identify with the Reformed tradition? That something really does differentiate Reformed from other Protestant communions?
I have no idea what Leithart’s response might be to a question about whether to minister as a Presbyterian or Lutheran. But I suspect, even hope, that he would say that Reformed Protestantism is superior in its teaching and practices to other Protestant churches.
If so, it would be a welcome development if he would pay back a little into the Presbyterian heritage fund. I mean, it is one thing to teach and defend the Reformed confessions and another to sit back and let your professional colleagues do it, all the while benefitting from at least some of their labors. It is also one thing to seek unity and discipline in a Reformed communion (through the heavy lifting of service at church assemblies) and allow the efforts of others to provide a cushion for you to do your own work. Furthermore, it is one thing to build on insights of generations of theologians and pastors (after all, Leithart isn’t starting from scratch, not even with his exegesis) and not show some gratitude for what has gone before.
Not everyone has to do the same amount of work or heritage maintenance. But is it too much to ask for everyone to be pulling in the same direction?
It is a free country, of course, and we have Reformed communions that are more or less confessional. So Leithart doesn’t have to do anything to keep up with his teaching, preaching, blogging, and writing. But for the sake of truth in advertising, identifying with his Presbyterian credentials, communicants, and past would certainly be desirable. It would even be responsible.
Postscript: I hesitated to employ “parasitic” in the post’s title but wanted to maintain the alliteration. “Free-riding” is obviously less inflammatory but at least I (always gracious) didn’t use “bloodsucking.”
99 Comments
D. G. Hart: Richard, I have no problem admitting that Scripture is infallible and the Confession is not the place where we go to settle controversies or to understand God’s will (though the confession does summarize biblical teaching). What you won’t admit is that you are just as dependent on history and church fathers as I am — hence your oversized love for Edwards.
RS: Maybe I am not as dependent on history and the church fathers as you are, but I do read them and have a high appreciation for them. But it is not that I have an oversized love for Edwards, but you have no love for him at all. Such a shame, really. But what I love about reading Edwards is the glory of God that shines through his use of Scripture and his understanding. So I am not sure that I have an oversized love for him, though your point is taken, but through his writings and explanations of Scripture the glory of God shines quite brightly. I hope that it is God that I love rather than Edwards.
Richard, who says you are to “believe” the Bible because of someone else. We are talking about interpretation of Scripture and who shapes us. You keep waffling between leaning on someone else and standing on your own (when in fact your leaning on someone else as you claim to stand alone).
Richard, I’ll put Luther up against Edwards any day. Edwards’ divine glory never provides comfort. Luther begins and ends with Christ (who has a lot to say about God’s glory).
DGH:
“Ted, don’t forget the pastoral epistles and the Old Testament when you start interpreting.”
Oh Darryl. I’ve been interpreting for decades now.
So, to Acts 15 and an “either/or” interpretive question.
Acts 15:22 has the word “church” in the singular: “with the whole church.” The interpretive question is this: which church is “the whole church” – the church of Jersusalem (cf. Acts 15:4, 16:4), or a convening of the leaders of churches (see WCF: 31:1, “Of Synods and Councils”)?
Ted, you mean, like, when the elders of Israel assembled it was all of Israel or simply the leaders of Israels?
D. G. Hart: Richard, who says you are to “believe” the Bible because of someone else. We are talking about interpretation of Scripture and who shapes us. You keep waffling between leaning on someone else and standing on your own (when in fact your leaning on someone else as you claim to stand alone).
RS: I don’t claim to stand alone. I am not sure why you keep coming up with that, but I guess it fits a paradigm. I am saying each person must be convinced by the study of Scripture as to what Scripture teaches, but the confessions and the giants who have been in the land we must use. Paul used the Old Testament and the words of Jesus and he is a model of what is truly authoritative. I guess I see myself as standing somewhere in the middle with the belief (along with WCF) that each person must study the Scripture and be convinced of what Scripture teaches because Scripture teaches it. Other things are helps, guides, and parameters. It is dangerous to believe something that has new in history, but it is also dangerous to believe something because it has been in history for a long time.
D. G. Hart: Richard, I’ll put Luther up against Edwards any day.
RS: No use setting friends against each other.
D.G. Hart: Edwards’ divine glory never provides comfort.
RS: I cannot speak to your affections and why you don’t find an affection that corresponds with comfort, but I can only tell you that biblically speaking there is no true comfort apart from that divine glory.
D.G. Hart: Luther begins and ends with Christ (who has a lot to say about God’s glory).
RS: That is why I don’t think you understand Edwards correctly. By the way, just because one does not understand Edwards correctly does not necessarily put them out of the kingdom. But… With Edwards there is no separating the glory of God from Christ. So if one preaches Christ and another preaches the glory of God, they are not preaching different things in reality. But again, one has to see that in light of the nature of the Trinity. Hebrews 1:3; John 1:1-5, 14-18 and II Cor 3:18; 4:4, 6 show this.
Richard, and it is dangerous to go to the mat defending everything Edwards wrote (especially when he wrote too much and wasn’t always clear — as McMark well shows). Some would say that if you are as devoted to the Bible as you say, you’d give up Edwards.
D. G. Hart: Richard, and it is dangerous to go to the mat defending everything Edwards wrote (especially when he wrote too much and wasn’t always clear — as McMark well shows).
RS: But I wouldn’t degend all that he wrote, though he was not as unclear as some seem to think. He does lean on things he had written and/or preached previously, but if one gets a bigger picture of him he is not as unclear as some make out. I don’t think that one quote taken from its immediate context and then its larger context proves that he wrote too much (I wish he would have written more) or that he was wasn’t always clear to all who read him. I would also say we could make part of that charge against the Bible. It is not always clear either.
D.G. Hart: Some would say that if you are as devoted to the Bible as you say, you’d give up Edwards.
RS: Then those folks need to read more of the Bible and Edwards and they would know that they are wrong and repent in dust and ashes.
DGH:
“Ted, you mean, like, when the elders of Israel assembled it was all of Israel or simply the leaders of Israels?”
Darryl, did the non-representative elders of tribes Israel who killed Christ become the representative elders of the local bodies of Christ who love Christ?
Ted, of course not. But we’re not talking about who killed Christ. We’re talking about whether the leaders from different congregations or tribes may constitute the whole church.
D. G. Hart: Richard, who says you are to “believe” the Bible because of someone else. We are talking about interpretation of Scripture and who shapes us.
RS: Below is an interesting discussion of things within the PCA. I bet D.G. Hart would find some fuel for a few BLOG topic here. I might add that it would be rightly so. It is also related to many things discussed at oldlife.
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?m=t&s=7312842493
DGH:
“Ted, of course not. But we’re not talking about who killed Christ. We’re talking about whether the leaders from different congregations or tribes may constitute the whole church.”
And what say you from Acts 15:22?
Ted, I don’t really know what point you’re trying to make. The council of Jerusalem was not a congregation, or a group of congregations. It was an assembly of officers who were there to make decisions for the whole church since there is only one church that meets in different locations.
While I’ve appreciated Rev. Stellman’s defense of Reformed orthodoxy, I suspect that that defense fell largely on deaf ears in the PCA. As a conservative mainline Presbyterian, I have always viewed the PCA as little more than a de facto sect of the SBC. The battle over FV will be won by the party that is best able to demonstrate that they lie the closest to the revivalistic Baptistic tradition that permeates the PCA.
“Some would say that if you are as devoted to the Bible as you say, you’d give up Edwards.”
Some would say?! What a weasel word! Notice, Darryl doesn’t have the nerve to say it himself; he says “some would say”. What does that prove? Sadly, nothing, it seems as if DGH wants to muddy the waters with a ridiculous side track; “some would say”. Darryl, please never say that again, since *some* people will *say* anything. So what?
DGH:
“The council of Jerusalem was not a congregation, or a group of congregations. It was an assembly of officers who were there to make decisions for the whole church since there is only one church that meets in different locations.”
It seems a bit parochial and even jejune to call apostles “officers.” Officers aren’t the foundation of Christ’s Church, and all the recorded speakers of the conference were apostles. Under their authority, all the elders present agreed entirely with all that was spoken by the Lord’s apostles. And why not? Their words (apostles) were of the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:28).
So in what sense is the Jerusalem Conf. a pattern for synods and councils, as WCF 31 claims? The JC was universally applied to ALL churches and to disobey it’s decisions was to disobey apostles (Acts 16:4). But for me to disobey the OPC GA makes me guilty of exactly what? (or name your denomination). In rejecting the Presby adjudications have I disobeyed the word of God? And if I have not, neither has anyone.
And if no one has disobeyed God by rejecting their GA’s decisions, to which may be added the synods of the RCC, then all biblical authority is gone. All that is left is human authority.
Without Acts 15 you have no hope of claiming the Bible teaches connectional polity. You are left to rebuild your denomination’s authority from the writings of men in order to bind the conscience of men apart from Scripture.
BTW, no vote was recorded at the JC, and yet the decisions reached about what must be compelled upon ALL believers was unanimous (Acts 15:25). When was the last time a major policy decision in your GA was unanimous?
Ted,
In rejecting the Presby adjudications have I disobeyed the word of God?
Any devout Presbyterian would claim that it is a sin to be outside of a confessionally Reformed communion, so the answer would be clearly – yes. Denominations are a form of discipline, an acknowledgement that there are real matters of substance that separate us, matters that rise to the level of sinfulness, regardless of which denomination you belong to (e.g. Baptists think it’s a sin for us to baptize our babies, RC’s believe it is a sin to reject the primacy of the bishop of Rome). So saying you reject certain denominational authority in no way removes sin from the equation – the fact of the matter is there is a “right answer” and there is some cost to getting it wrong, even if that doesn’t necessarily make one not a member of the invisible church.
Frankly Ted, I have no idea where you come up with the notion that the apostles were anything other than officers of the church, even Christ fulfills a distinct office in his church. The apostles were commissioned with a very specific task with regard to the growth, function, and maintenance of the church – hence they held a specific office with certain duties entailed in that office. So there is a good deal of continuity between the Jerusalem Council and all other church councils that have proceeded, they had to answer a historical occasion with the truth and authority that was vested to their office for the good of the church. Your arguments against “connective” models of church governance just don’t hold up against historical scrutiny – it was the catholicity or “connectivity” of the early church that enable the codifying of our cardinal doctrines, doctrines we still confess today. Could a rag-tag group of independents have given us Nicea, or Chalcedon – would they have been able to stand united on matters of Trinitarian and Christological orthodoxy? Likewise, we continue in this tradition, confessing the truth of Scripture together, in mutual submission to both Scripture and to what we believe Scripture affirms. The church has the responsibility to state, summarize, and clarify the truth in it’s time, which is why we have councils.
So what, you reject the authority of a NAPARC denomination, I am not sure how you get around utilizing ecumenical confessions. Would you consider someone who rejects the Apostles Creed a Christian, would you nominate an elder who rejected the Chalcedonian Definition? Even some baptists utilize confessional documents that were drafted in an ecumenical manner – LBC and Savoy Baptists seem to have at least some notion of catholicity and the need to hold a common basis for doctrine. I am sure you have conscientious reasons for why you reject Reformed doctrine and polity, but I don’t understand for the life of me why you would argue that Acts 15 has nothing to say to how the church must confess the truth today.
DGH: “The council of Jerusalem was not a congregation, or a group of congregations. It was an assembly of officers who were there to make decisions for the whole church since there is only one church that meets in different locations.”
RS: In my reading of Acts 15 there were only people from two churches or cities present. 1) Paul, Barnabas, and some others from Antioch. 2) The apostles and elders from Jerusalem.
Ted, whatever you think about the OPC and its Assembly — you do have a way of going down rabbit trails — you do seem to concede that Acts 15 is an instance of connectional polity. Great.
As for other examples in the NT, just consider the connection between Paul, Timothy, and elders who rule. And then there is the precedent of connectionalism in the OT.
Jed: “Any devout Presbyterian would claim that it is a sin to be outside of a confessionally Reformed communion, so the answer would be clearly – yes.”
Jed, what date in history did this become a sin? And why aren’t you calling people to repent from it (using Scripture, one would hope)?
Jed: “saying you reject certain denominational authority in no way removes sin from the equation”
Then tell me out of a love for holiness: what is my sin?
Jed: “Frankly Ted, I have no idea where you come up with the notion that the apostles were anything other than officers of the church.”
The apostles were not subject to any one church in the way that officers of churches are (1 Cor. 9:-2; 1 Thess. 2:6; Acts 16:4; 1 Peter 1:1). Your citation of Christ (“even Christ fulfills a distinct office in his church”) is likewise mistaken in that He rules local churches through qualified elders and the church universal by providence. Equating “office” with “officer” is a logical fallacy. The claim that present officers of local churches can adjudicate over churches as apostles did is simply false and in fact never happens. Did you read the Presby denomination that just adjudicated against spanking of children?
Jed: “Likewise, we continue in this tradition, confessing the truth of Scripture together, in mutual submission to both Scripture and to what we believe Scripture affirms. The church has the responsibility to state, summarize, and clarify the truth in it’s time, which is why we have councils.”
You make universals: “the church has the responsibility…which is why we have councils.” Which church Jed? Or did you mean denomination? This is why I say Presbys are wanna-be Catholics. You guys think you speak to the universal church from a place of authority but it’s self-conferred. And even your own member church’s representatives vote against policy motions at GAs, showing you don’t have the leading of the Holy Spirit as did the apostles and elders in the JC (Acts 15:28). You want to claim their Spirit-led example for your practices but don’t have God’s Spirit to honor it.
DGH: “you do seem to concede that Acts 15 is an instance of connectional polity. Great.”
Well, no great communicator am I. I’m trying to show Acts 15 shows just the opposite.
Ted, the apostles were subject to each other. Don’t you remember Paul correcting Peter?
So far, btw, you’ve only been kvetching. You haven’t shown much.
Gee, I don’t know Darryl. Maybe you’re right. I never can correctly assess my kvetchedness from my wretchedness. Adamic hangover. Maybe I stretchedness too much.
But you have yet to engage my interpretation of Acts 15:22 or my bigger challenge that your faith in your church’s confession shares the same foundation and effects as Catholicism. Perhaps as an OPC brother Jed made that point for you quite nicely above, thank him very much.
Ted Bigelow: Maybe I stretchedness too much. But you have yet to engage my interpretation of Acts 15:22 or my bigger challenge that your faith in your church’s confession shares the same foundation and effects as Catholicism.
RS: I left the stretchedness in there simply because it made me smile. Would you mind explaining your challenge about the confession sharing the same foundation and effects as Catholicism? By the way, I am not challenging your challenge but am simply curious or wanting to see your point(s). Thanks
Ted, what interpretation?
Also, in case you hadn’t heard, Presbyterians baptize babies and administer the Lord’s Supper. Sounds pretty Roman Catholic.
DGH:
“Also, in case you hadn’t heard, Presbyterians baptize babies and administer the Lord’s Supper. Sounds pretty Roman Catholic.”
Out of the mouth of babes (dippers). Having a diffucult time staying on point, are we?
Richard,
I love confessions of faith because they are massively helpful teching tools. They just requiring a different level of faith than that reserved for Scripture.
Of course everyone agrees with this. But the fact is that those in a confessional group will rarely if ever recieve well those who proove their confession is at odds with Scripture. For men like myself, the issue is always hermeneutics. For confessional men the issue is always, “what says so and so?”
So people get hardened to Scripture. God does not honor unbelief but further hardens those who do it so that they understand less and less of Scripture while being more proud and arrogant.
The only answer is reformation, the kind mandated in Titus 1:5. It was then that ungodly leaders were removed out of a whole island filled with churches – at least one in every town – and every church with a polity in oppostion to apostolic polity was dismantled and placed under qualified elders.
When Titus was finished appointing elders in every town there was no connectional polity, no congregational polity, and no episcopal polity in the churches of Crete. And to whatever extent those polities were employed in Crete’s churches prior to Titus’ reformation, they were dismantled by apostolic authority. After that, each town’s church was led by a plurality of godly elders. This is the the only reformation the NT bears witness to.
Ted, your point was that Presbyterian ecclesiology is like Rome, right? My response is that Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are like Rome — all Christians are sacramental. So now what exactly is your point?
Ted, Titus’ reformation the only one, except for Acts 15 and the OT. Connectional polity runs through all of Scripture.
BTW, hermeneutics is as much a human construction as any confession. In fact, confessions are professions of Christians. Hermeneutics as so much human speculation.
DGH: “Ted, your point was that Presbyterian ecclesiology is like Rome, right?”
Hardly.
DGH: “BTW, hermeneutics is as much a human construction as any confession. In fact, confessions are professions of Christians. Hermeneutics as so much human speculation.”
Again, hardly. The Son of God revels the Father hermeneutically in the Word of God (John 1:18). Confessions reveal a date-stamped attempt to organize the riches of revealed truth apporpriate to the debates of that day.
Christ often affirms and teaches herementics. He quoted the OT often. “You have heard… But I say to you….” He didn’t rely on existing confessions of faith, did He?
He even approved of the hermenutics of an unregenerate man: “You have answered correctly; DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE” (Luke 10:28). Hermenutics is therefore neither speculation, nor a merely human construction.
Read the Bible wrong and you die. Read it right and you live.You can’t say that about the WCF. Well, you could, but you’ld be wrong.
Ted, right, and I’m going to assign the Bible to teach hermeneutics? Turning the word into an adverb doesn’t make it divine.
DGH: “Ted, right, and I’m going to assign the Bible to teach hermeneutics? Turning the word into an adverb doesn’t make it divine.”
“Yea, has God said,” spake the serpent, accusing Eve of faulty hermeneutics relying on God’s word alone. And we’ve been paying the price ever since in death, fear, and unbelief.
So your point is, “You can’t interpret Scripture apart from men?” Well, no.
Then your point is, “You can’t interpret Scripture apart from the Church?” See. You’re a wanna-be Catholic.
Ted, are you not part of the church? Is a congregation somehow anti-ecclesiastical? You are defeating yourself since you yourself make a particular ecclesiology so fundamental to how you judge other believers.
Ted, I know Titus is everything for you, but I’m sure you’ve read Ephesians 4:
“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”
IOW, God has equipped the church to interpret Scripture. That’s what confessions, creeds, and catechisms are, the result of God having given teachers to build up the body in unity and preserve from being tossed by every wind of doctrine. How exactly is this latently Roman? You say you “love confessions of faith because they are massively helpful teching tools,” but Ephesians 4 seems to have an even higher view of the gifts to the church than your high opinion.
DGH: “You are defeating yourself since you yourself make a particular ecclesiology so fundamental to how you judge other believers.”
Darryl, if I disagree with you am I being wrongly judgmental? Is showing you where your faith is Catholic and at odds with Scripture wrong? If not, then why do you feel wrongly judged?
Zrim, thanks for the passage in Ephesians. And i do agree that God has equipped the church to interpret Scripture through the gifts lavishly given by the risen and glorious Lord Jesus. That’s why I love confessions and creeds and catchisms. If you make your over to our church’s web site you can see a “What We Teach” statement 9 or so pages long of single spaced theologizing. It tells our people what they can expect to hear from the elders. Privately, my wife and I used catechisms (Luther’s, WSC) in raising our children in the faith.
Where I cannot join you is identifying creeds and confessions as the mature result of the Lord’s gifts to the church, nor does Eph. 4. Confessions mixed with faith don’t keep believers from every new wind of tricksy doctrine as history clearly proves. Confessions are date-stamped because they dealt with the doctrinal problems and men’s theological understanding of those problems in their day.
Scripture, mixed with faith and gifted teachers teaching, does keep believers from false doctrine. We haven’t reached the fullness of the stature of Christ yet so lets pursue the knowledge of Him in Scripture. Let’s stand on our forefathers in the faith’s shoulders, as God might enable, yet examine their hermeneutics in light of Scripture. Its just being “more noble minded than those in Thessalonica” if you catch my drift.
Ted, this is what is perplexing about the low church evangelical ethic over against the high church confessional ethic: why do you guys get to have a “statement 9 or so pages long of single spaced theologizing” but we get uncharitably dinged for being latent Catholics for having confessions? The thing is, everybody is confessional and denominational, as your 9 pages clearly shows, but it’s the evangelical non-denominationalists who seem to think they may reserve the right to impugn those honest enough to admit it, all in the ironic name of being biblical.
Ted, quit bloviating.
Are you here to see if there is some low-hanging fruit you can pick off? You don’t engage with the actual Scriptural arguments on this side for our polity and doctrinal definitions. You clearly don’t come in here for genuine engagement, but to get off talking points. You toss around a verse or two as if that was biblical theology and exegesis. You’re as fresh as a stale papist doing a Mt.16:18/Jas.2:24 drive-by.
You aren’t honest, face it. You literally know zero about what we do, or the biblical defense of it. I know you don’t because you are as ignorant today as several months ago when I offered you (in another thread) 500pp of biblical theology and exegesis to start your learning curve. The Presb. & Refd. prefer something more robust than picking a handy verse, to which to *peg* our doctrine, as you seem to think we should (since that’s closer to your practice).
The reading I suggested wasn’t an assignment with a goal of getting you to change your mind. But to assist you in gaining some clarity into the substance of what you are actually meeting with here and elsewhere. Obviously you have some idea about what Rome thinks and why. But in your dualistic world, everyone who doesn’t agree with you shares in their errors. If you bothered to do some investigation, hopefully you might put aside at least some of the idiotic projections you assign to us. But you don’t know what we believe, and therefore are not competent to judge what is wrong with it.
Fine, you aren’t interested, and that’s actually OK… except for the fact that you still come around and spout off nonsense like “you are just RomanCatholics in this and that.” Strong statements; obvious bullheaded ignorance. And it isn’t excusable, because you’ve been petitioned to get a little education, and then come back to talk.
This isn’t an issue of you being *more* Reformational than us, or carrying through the “sola scriptura” principle with greater rigor or love of the truth. We have the *same* final authority that you claim: the Bible. We just use *more* of it that you do, and that means that we read it differently than you do. Ours is the “Reformed” hermeneutic, and yours is the “Anabaptist.” Let’s put these disputes over ecclesiology and credo into proper perspective.
Since you don’t understand why we don’t believe as you do, nor do you care to figure it out, you just assume it’s tied historically to the extrabiblical claims of medieval Romanism, from which soup the churches of the Reformation era emerged. And in your head, this a priori justifies your dismissive insults.
Until you demonstrate some studied familiarity with the contrary biblical interpretation (to yours) of the believing, confessing Presb.& Refd. churches, people here shouldn’t take you seriously.
Ted, no it’s not that your judgmental it’s that your hypocritically judgmental. You have a view of the church but if others do and make it important (as you do) then we are Roman Catholic. You have your own church’s confession, determined by elders, and yet others who use confessions are deficient. BTW, did your elders and you cherry pick from “date-stamped” creeds when you wrote this: “We teach that Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, possesses all the divine excellencies, and in these He is coequal, consubstantial, and coeternal with the Father ( John 10:30; 14:9).”
Come on back to earth Ted. Your pedestal is no more divine than the Reformed churches’.
DGH: “You have a view of the church but if others do and make it important (as you do) then we are Roman Catholic.”
It isn’t taking the church seriously that makes one Catholic-like, but how one relies on man-made documents that claim to define the church that does.
DGH: “You have your own church’s confession, determined by elders, and yet others who use confessions are deficient.”
I’m guessing you saw our “What We Teach” document online and assumed that since we have document that specifies teaching positions that we use a confession. It’s not. Members of Grace Church are not required to embrace it lock, stock, and barrel since the positions worked out there are the result of years of exegesis and study. What they agree to is being taught those doctrinal positions.
Further, in all the years I’ve been an elder we’ve never once gone back to our “What We Teach” statement to recalibrate or find out what we’re supposed to believe. A “What We Teach” statement relies on confessions and the work of godly and gifted men who have plowed the ground before us, as you point out, but it’s different than a confession in both intent and effect.
What we yearn for is exegesis based on sound hermeneutics that can be derived from special revelation. Where I am wrong on Scripture I want to know, and the one trying to show me where I am wrong is my friend. Our failings as elders are many, yes, but relying on our “What We Teach” statement as a safeguard of the truth and Christ’s sheep (as a Catholic-like approach to church documents would) is not likely one of them.
I guess engaging Acts 15:22 isn’t a part of Old Life. Too bad. It’s referred to in the WCF as a Scriptural proof for synods and councils.
Zrim: “The thing is, everybody is confessional and denominational, as your 9 pages clearly shows, but it’s the evangelical non-denominationalists who seem to think they may reserve the right to impugn those honest enough to admit it, all in the ironic name of being biblical.”
As I just mentioned above, while we have document it doesn’t function as a confession does to a Reformed group of churches. I understand the confusion, and it may seem obvious to you that we are insincere while your group is honest.
But nowhere has our Lord or His apostles told us to hold to a man-made confession or to define our church by such. Our anti-confessional approach to the ministry is not a pendulum swing against the Reformed and Catholic view of the church, but as a way to present to the flock we are accountable for what we will teach them. Where ever anyone disagrees with it (you, or anyone), we yearn to have our potential errors pointed out to us from Scripture. We’re not protecting, nor deriving life from it.
Bruce,
I freely admit I am not as read in Reformed polity as I could be and maybe ought to be, but I have read David W Hall and Joseph H. Hall, eds. Paradigms in Polity. That is hardly a small work (600 pages)! I read this (and other works) long before our brief exchange of months ago, so no, your offering was not the beginning of my learning curve. I’m at a stage now where I look for the author’s use of Scripture and I did scan the work you emailed me. There was very little in the way of exegesis. A lot of assertion but little exegesis. Sorry. Like reading Witherow’s “The Apostolic Church Which Is It? An Enquiry At The Oracles Of God As To Whether Any Existing Form Of Church Government Is Of Divine Right.” May I say tendentious?
I appreciate you openly claiming a “Reformed” hermeneutic. Although I think the term is open to critique, I appreciate your candor. However, I’m sorry. I do not use an Anabaptist hermeneutic, however that might be defined b a very Reformed man like yourself.
Bruce, have you considered your faith? How do you understand Jesus’ words, “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire”?
My take on that is rather plain. It’s true.
You don’t know me or my life except from some theological argumentation. Yet your post accuses me of many sins, too many to list frankly. But the one that suggests to me that you ought to weigh your words in the light of Mat. 5:22 is the use of “idiotic.” That’s a strong word, and is quite in line with “raca” or “fool” in Mat. 5:22.
And in terms of the polity of your group of connected churches, it really all rests one a single verse: Acts 15:22.
Ted, if you don’t like the Anabaptist charge then knock off the latent Catholic jazz. The difference is between low church Protestantism and high church Protestantism, though your credo-baptism puts you one large step closer to the Radical Reformation than the Protestant Reformation.
Ted, your fears of man-made statements must undermine you or your pastor’s regular preaching since what’s the congregation doing listening to just “some guy” preaching. At some point you may need to step up and admit that God delegates authority to men. If we can admit that in society and in the home, why is the church so scary?
As for Acts 15:22, I haven’t seen any exegesis on your side, only references to texts. I don’t see how “the whole church” proves congregationalism or disproves ecclesiastical rule. Be careful with “whole,” by the way, since the Bible says God loves the “whole” world.
Zrim: “if you don’t like the Anabaptist charge then knock off the latent Catholic jazz.”
Thank you. I now understand why you responded the way you did. But isn’t it just possible that someone who isn’t an Anabaptist could make the charge and yet be correct? It’s like Van Til charging all Arminians “Catholics.” I happen to think he was right in that he was referring to where their faith came from (their “pou sto.”). I don’t believe Van Til was trying to offend as much as enlighten (although he no doubt knew how it sounded).
DGH: “At some point you may need to step up and admit that God delegates authority to men.”
Indeed, and to stay within the ordained sphere of delegated authority is faith and not presumption.
DGH: “As for Acts 15:22, I haven’t seen any exegesis on your side, only references to texts.”
Fair enough. The “whole church” of Acts 15:22 is asserted by Presbyterians (and in the WCF) to be made men from several (at least) various churches in Reformed literature (this is necessary for the claim that presbyteries, synods, assemblies, etc. are attested biblically.
One sample: When Luke wrote “the whole church” in Acts 15:22 he was referring to the representatives of many churches, including Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia” (L. Ron Taylor, “Presbyterianism,” , page 81 in Who Runs the Church? Zondervan, 2004) – or see Richard Reymond, “The Presbytery-Led Church,” page 108 in Perspectives on Church Government, Broadman and Holman, 2004.
Thus, these (alleged) representatives were formally connected to each other and made a decision binding for their respective churches.
Is this what the text teaches? At least 4 factors militate against it.
1) The representatives are never named or identified as representatives or speakers in any way, so how does anyone know they even existed? It’s conjecture.
2) The whole church” mentioned in Acts 15:22 is exactly what it sounds like — the one church in Jerusalem. At the beginning of the chapter Luke states that when Paul and Barnabas and their companions “came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by “the church” (Acts 15:4). His words make it clear that neither Paul nor Barnabas nor their traveling companions were a part of that church. Instead, they were welcomed by that church, and the church was in Jerusalem. This same church is later mentioned in Acts 15:22 as “the whole church.” There is no hint in the intervening verses that there might be more than one church being represented for no other church is mentioned. Had Luke intended us to understand that multiple churches were represented at the Jerusalem Conference he simply could have used the plural “churches” as he did a few verses later in Acts 15:41. Moreover the verb “choose” in Acts 15:22 is both masculine and plural and therefore refers only to the “apostles and elders.” It can-not be, linguistically, that “the whole church” made a decision; instead it was only the apostles and elders of the Jerusalem church, as Acts 16:4 confirms.
3) Luke further undercuts the connectional claim. He explains that Paul and Silas went to the churches of their first missionary journey and “delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith…” (Acts 16:4-5). This subverts the connectional claim of representation since these churches were not represented at the Jerusalem Conference and yet had to obey the decrees. Therefore the JC was not representational. Had there been church representatives involved in the decisions at the Jerusalem Conference, they would have carried the conference’s decisions back to their own churches, not Paul and the others.
4) The Holy Spirit inspired Luke to make distinction between singular “church” and plural “churches.” When these words are traced from Acts 15 and into Acts 16 a clear distinction is made. The JC was delivered to churches (plural) – not the “Church.” Additionally, the decisions of the JC were binding on every individual church, not based on representation, but based on the nature of the event being superintended by the Holy Spirit (likely in the form of prophecy, Acts 15:28) – and the apostolic involvement – every speaker was an apostle.
Thus, the Catholic and Connectional claim that multiple churches were involved in the JC is incorrect. Take away Acts 15:22 and Catholics and Connectionalists are left with nothing to base their ecclesiastical doctrine upon but distant allusions to OT Israel while repressing what God does say in the NT.
In love, Ted
Ted, if you are critical of confessionalism, fine. But the charge of latent Catholicism is reckless (and not easily covered with feigned love). It sounds an awful lot like the Radical Reformation’s charge that the Protestant Reformation didn’t go far enough in its reforms. I understand that today’s Baptist isn’t yesteryear’s Anabaptist. But the sacramentology, coupled up with both the lower ecclesiology and this constant criticism of Reformed being latently Roman sure puts you much closer to Münster than Geneva.
Zrim,
Was Van Til unloving to call Evangelicals, for the most part anyway, Catholics? And in saying he did love them, was he in fact hypocritical?
For many it took his insights to help us see our accomodation to Catholocism. It is our natural position, you know.
Ted, to draw parallels between evangelicals and Catholics is one thing (and quite perceptive). But there are important differences that keep each in their respective camps. Still, low church evangelicals have more in common with infallible church Catholics than high church Calvinists have with either.
Zrim: “Still, low church evangelicals have more in common with infallible church Catholics than high church Calvinists have with either.”
Perhaps, with epistemology being foremost? Popes in independent churches? Check. An approach to relating to God that is “magic.” Check. And you could add many more, no doubt. Alternative sources of authority to Scripture. Check.
Which means it’s time to move on to the text of Scripture, friend. Acts 15:22 and WCF 31….