I know this video is meant to be funny and lighthearted, but by implication it has a serious side. This fellow who is clearly capable will likely find out once he passes his ordination exams that many of the PCUSA’s orthodoxies on women, gender-inclusive language, and church bureaucracy will not be laughing matters.

Some viewers have commented that this video is a great example of “inside baseball humor” for Presbyterians. It is that. But it is also an indication of how easily mocked are some of the seismic shifts from the recent past that now define the mainline Protestant denominations.

I could well imagine someone making a funny video about the culture of Orthodox Presbyterians (and if anyone is inclined to do this please make sure that you feature untucked shirttails drooping beneath suit coats). But I also think an insider would have trouble poking fun at the beliefs that have mattered to conservative Presbyterians. It could just be me, but I always find mainline efforts to accommodate women and evangelical endeavors to promote real manhood much funnier than the nature and meaning of Christ’s sacrifice.

(Thanks to our Roman Catholic correspondent)

While at the church’s website I also ran across a series of posts by Terry on Reformed Worship and Ethnic Churches. It is smart and reflects Johnson’s own work on the history of Reformed worship. Terry also shows the welcome capacity to read outside biblical and theological sources to understand the common realm of culture. What follows is from the second part of the series:

There would seem to be many who think that the only “authentic” black worship is of the Pentecostal variety. The DNA of African Americans, so the theory goes, requires “emotionally expressive” music, preaching and congregational interaction. Thomas Sowell, scholar at Stanford University, Hoover Institute, offers another perspective. He connects inner-city African-American culture, including black dialect and music, the ghetto culture of violence, promiscuity, and indolence, as well as the oratorical style and the emotionalism of African-American church culture, with the northern Britains who populated the Southern states in the eighteenth century. They brought their social pathologies with them from the lawless, violent, barely civilized border regions of late 17th to early 18th century northern Britain including Scotland, and northern Ireland, and perpetuated them in what became white “redneck” culture. Poor “crackers,” as rural southern whites are sometimes called, provided the cultural context within which slave and post-emancipation African-American culture developed. It was “cracker” social and religious behaviors which southern blacks often mimicked.

Whether you agree with Johnson or Sowell, this is a perspective worth considering and one that you seldom hear from sappy evangelicals.

But the recent verdict in the trial of Peter Leithart suggests that the Baylys misunderstand the PCA altogether. Watching the release of different parts of the transcript has been jaw-droppingly astounding. The defense’s cross-examination of a witness against Leithart — Lane Kiester — was something worthy of a Hollywood production. Now comes Jason Stellman’s closing statement for the prosecution (which refers to the committee’s treatment of Kiester). Here are a few excerpts:

When Dr. Leithart was asked, why is it that people misrepresent you or misunderstand you. I was happy to hear that question asked from a member of this commission. That’s a question that I have often desired to ask of various proponents of the Federal Vision or the New Perspective on Paul. Why is it that your critics somehow never seem to be able to represent you fairly in your own estimation? Why is it that you’re never quoted fairly or in context? Why is that anyone who disagrees with you is somehow always misrepresenting you or failing to understand what you’re saying? And a follow up question would be, and why is it that all these people who misunderstand what you’re saying are all misunderstanding you to be saying the same thing? The answer that Dr. Leithart gave was, well, the reason that I’m so often misrepresented is a clash of paradigms. And I think he’s absolutely right. However, I would describe it as a clash of systems of doctrine. . . .

The Westminster Larger Catechism 69 teaches that our union with Christ is “manifested” by our “partaking of the virtue of his mediation, in [our] justification, adoption, [and] sanctification.” WLC 77 distinguishes justification from sanctification, insisting that while the latter is owing to the infusion of grace, the former is the result of the “imputation of Christ’s righteousness.”

TE Leithart writes:

“The Protestant doctrine has been too rigid in separating justification and sanctification, more rigid certainly than Scripture itself…. Justification and definitive sanctification are not merely simultaneous, nor merely twin effects of the single event of union with Christ (though I believe that is the case). Rather, they are the same act.”

The confessional, Reformed doctrine of justification (which TE Leithart calls “illegitimately narrow” and “distorted”) teaches that justification is a legal declaration of God, based upon the work of Christ, by which the obedience and satisfaction of Jesus are imputed to the sinner by faith alone. TE Leithart’s desire to see justification as a “deliverdict” (or, a delivering verdict) that contains within it the deliverance of God’s people from the power of sin (which our Confession calls “sanctification”) is to collapse what Reformed theology has always distinguished (and we have already heard expert testimony to the fact that definitive sanctification is much more closely related to progressive sanctification than it is to justification).

The entire statement is valuable and Jason deserves great helpings of gratitude for his courageous stand against the vagaries and errors of the Visionaries.

But the recent verdicts acquiting Federal Visionaries by two presbyteries within the PCA raise yet again questions about the state, coherence, and discipline of the Presbyterian Church in America. Yes, the denomination has studied Federal Vision and disapproved at the General Assembly level. But life on the ground in the PCA appears to be very different from what the Assembly does. Some have been circulating the website of a congregation in the South which describes a female counselor as a pastor (though since our correspondents in the South and Northwest sent word her title has changed). The Baylys have continued to notice the feminist friendly practices of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City.

But even in much less controversial ways, pastors and congregations in the PCA give evidence of uncertainty about matters Reformed. Over at Vintage73, a blog of young PCA pastors, one contributor comments on three pastoral mistakes he has made so far in his ministry. One was thinking that Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Church would be fix what ailed his congregation:

2. Going for the silver bullet- this is the ministry mistake of thinking the latest and greatest will solve all of your problems. A few years ago we were all told that using the “40 Days of Purpose” would increase attendance and giving! Great! How do I order? Where do I sign? Churches of all stripes were using it. Sadly, silver bullets only work on werewolves (or so I’m told). Now the silver bullet may be the latest and greatest in technological advancement. “Hey, if we get a Facebook page, start a Twitter account, and use some video that will turn Andy Stanley green with envy, we’ll turn this thing around!” It’s not that we can’t glean some insights from others, but if you think you’ve found the mystery method that will solve all of your ministry’s problems that doesn’t involve theological reflection, prayer, and repentance, my advice is to take your shiny ammo back to where you got it. Here’s an idea: What about starting with a renewed commitment to the primary tools God put in the church’s toolbox such as the ministry of the Word, prayer, sacraments, worship, and fellowship? Just a thought.

This fellow seems to think that his understands it a mistake to was thinking that churches have easy cures. He also indicates a commitment to the means of grace. But even more basic was the problem of a Reformed pastors contemplating using dubious schemes from a Southern Baptist minister. If he Presbyterian pastors simply had a conviction about following Reformed teachings and practices and using Reformed sources, he Rick Warren’s methods would never have had appeal to PCA pastors considered Warren’s project.

In other words, the PCA seems to need a broken windows ecclesiology. This is the idea that if you pay attention to the little things — like what books you use in Bible studies and Sunday school, elements and order of worship, national flags in the auditorium, avoiding both the church and secular holiday calendar — the big things (Federal Vision and Keller) take care of themselves. This means that a communion that practices a level of ecclesiastical policing (i.e. discipline) at the local level will inevitably reflect that same discipline at the denominational level and in turn will likely discourage the less disciplined to affiliate or join.

Which is another way of saying that the reason why certain figures in the PCA get away with what they get away with owes to the ethos of the communion itself. Folks in the PCA show discomfort with putting limits on its officers and agencies. If Keller and the Federal Visionaries find a home in the PCA it is because the PCA is increasingly spacious. Why the denomination has lost that older sense of combating the broadening effects of liberalism is a real question. When it started the PCA was not exclusively an Old School church. But its officers and members had a shared sense of needing to oppose error and that denominations have a record of going off course. Now that liberalism is supposedly defeated, the PCA does not exhibit such wariness. Only the Old Schoolers have it and some dismiss them as crazy TR’s because — well — everyone in the PCA loves Jesus (as if liberals did not). But for Presbyterians, liberalism was not the only problem. In fact, non-Reformed communions, teachings, and practices were also erroneous. To tolerate or overlook their errors was a form of liberalism.

I cannot fathom how the ending to this denominational story will be happy.

Arguably, one of the most moving parts of the Assembly came on Saturday morning during the presentation by the Committee on Christian Education. Part of the proceedings included a talk by Rev. John P. Galbraith, a 98-year old minister who actually studied at Westminster when Machen was still teaching and went on to serve in a variety of capacities, including General Secretary of both the Committee on Home Missions and the Committee on Foreign Missions. Even before speaking — which revealed a man with a mind still sharp and a tongue still eloquent — Galbraith received a standing ovation from commissioners and guests. The first words out of his mouth were those of the apostle Paul, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” Galbraith then added, “And you applaud me?”

As near as I could tell, Galbraith’s deflection of applause characterized the week of presentations, devotionals, and sermons. Orthodox Presbyterians were glad to have reached the seventy-fifth birthday, but but they also knew that their history was not sensational or the product of their own faithfulness. (Self-promotion alert: see this point expressed in a different way here.) As cliched as it may have sounded, the truth that human accomplishments were less responsible than God’s grace for the OPC’s “success” was overwhelming sense among all those gathered. Part of the reason must have been that the last time the OPC met to throw a birthday party — in 1986 at Tony Campolo’s Eastern University — the church also voted itself out of existence. That is, the OPC accepted the invitation from the PCA to join and be received into the newer Presbyterian denomination. The proposal did not receive the super-majority of votes needed to be sent to the presbyteries for ratification. But a majority of commissioners in 1986 were willing to hitch their own and longer story to a communion that was less than fifteen years old. After twenty-five years of developments in both denominations, hardly anyone, at least in the OPC, regrets the rejection of J&R.

And so with quiet resolve and restrained joy Orthodox Presbyterians reflected on their past and heard preachers and missionaries recount the mighty deeds of God throughout redemptive history. It was by most accounts a time of great blessing for all who attended, and even prompted some to think that the OPC should sponsor its own national conference. Its speakers, like its history, would not be famous. And so the turnout would be light, insufficient to cover expenses. But those preachers would know their Bibles. Perhaps, just as important, they’d know their place — that the power of their words depends not on their own accomplishments or celebrity but on the God who gave them the word to proclaim.

If Edwards’ defenders are still reading, and if they still think the First Pretty Good Awakening great, then perhaps they could help us all figure out what Edwards was thinking when he wrote this about Brainerd’s conversion and piety:

His first discovery of God, of Christ, at his conversion, was not any strong idea of any external glory or brightness, or majesty and beauty of countenance, or pleasant voice; nor was it any supposed immediate manifestation of God’s love to him in particular; nor any imagination of Christ’s smiling face, arms open, or words immediately spoken to him, as by name, revealing Christ’s love to him; either words of Scripture or any other: but a manifestation of God’s glory, and the beauty of his nature, as supremely excellent in itself; powerfully drawing, and sweetly captivating the heart; bringing him to a hearty desire to exalt God, set him on the throne, and give him supreme honor and glory, as the king and sovereign of the universe; and also a new sense of the infinite wisdom, suitableness, and excellency of the way of salvation by Christ; powerfully engaging his whole soul to embrace this way of salvation, and to delight in it.

Okay, so this is the standard starting point of Christian hedonism. Genuine faith begins with the convert being enraptured with God. Self-interest is forbidden. The aim of faith is to glorify and exalt God, and to deny the self and renounce pride. This description is, for that matter, close to Edwards’ own account of his own conversion.

But Edwards goes on to contrast Brainerd’s conversion with either an inferior or illegitimate kind:

His first faith did not consist in believing that Christ loved him, and died for him in particular. His first comfort was not from any secret suggestion of God’s eternal love to him, or that God was reconciled to him, or intended great mercy for him; by any such texts as these, “Son be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee. Fear not I am thy God,” &c. or in any such way. On the contrary, when God’s glory was first discovered to him, it was without any thought of salvation as his own. His first experience of the sanctifying and comforting power of God’s Spirit did not begin in some bodily sensation, any pleasant warm feeling in his breast, that he (as some others) called the feeling of the love of Christ in him, and being full of the Spirit. How exceeding far were his experiences at his first conversion from things of such a nature! (Life of David Brainered, (1835], 249)

Hence, the question “what must I do to be saved” is the wrong question to ask for someone seeking salvation. Instead, Edwards seems to prefer “how must I glorify and hedonistically enjoy God?” But as close as that question is to the start of the Shorter Catechism, it is several steps removed from “What is effectual calling?” “Effectual calling is the work of God’s spirit whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he enables us to embrace Christ freely offered to us in the gospel.”

The Shorter Catechism would appear to be describing something close to the beginning of genuine belief in a Christian, and it says very little about the glory of God. It says much about the sinner’s need, and Christ’s remedy for sin, not to mention the work of the Spirit.

So I wonder what Edwards was thinking, and why so many evangelical Calvinists find his devotion appealing.

Moore’s point was not so much to tell Presbyterians to shape up but to observe the decline of denominationalism in the United States – or more accurately, the loss of denominational brands for believers’ identity, such as “Hug me, I’m a Presbyterian.” He writes:

Studies conducted by secular and Christian organizations indicate that we are. Fewer and fewer American Christians, especially Protestants, strongly identify with a particular religious communion—Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, etc. According to the Baylor Survey on Religion, nondenominational churches now represent the second largest group of Protestant churches in America, and they are also the fastest growing.

Moore argues that the rise of megachurches corresponds to Americans looking for church for practical reasons: “Is the nursery easy to find? Do I like the music? Are there support groups for those grappling with addiction?” If people bring these concerns to a Baptist church, they may be disappointed: “A church that requires immersion baptism before taking communion, as most Baptist traditions do, will likely get indignant complaints from evangelical visitors who feel like they’ve been denied service at a restaurant.”

But Moore sees some hopeful signs for a return to an older understanding of church, grounded in a doctrinal and evangelistic identity. One sign is the growth of the Southern Baptist Convention, which has 10,000 seminarians now a six different schools.

Moore concludes:

If denominationalism simply denotes a “brand” vying for market share, then let denominationalism fall. But many of us believe denominations can represent fidelity to living traditions of local congregations that care about what Jesus cared about—personal conversion, discipleship, mission and community. Perhaps the denominational era has just begun.

The SBC may not be the best case for denominationalism not simply because it is self-consciously not a denomination but also because it hardly has the order or unity that insures a SBC congregation in Saddleback, California will be remotely similar to one in Louisville, Kentucky. But the point about the decline of denominations is fitting and the example of Presbyterians is a good one. Aside from the mainline PCUSA, which continue to hemorrhage its millions, the largest Presbyterians denominations are in the thousands: the PCA at roughly 300,000, the EPC at approximately 60,000, and the OPC bringing up the rear at around 30,000.

One factor in Presbyterian decline that Moore should not have been expected to acknowledge (since you need some local knowledge) is the phenomenon of Presbyterians becoming networkers. An irony of Moore’s piece is that it came out the same week that David Nicholas, one of the leaders in church networking, died. The founding pastor of Spanish River Church (PCA) in Boca Raton, Florida, Nicholas also established the Church Planting Network, which according to the website has nine churches around the world.

That may seem an insignificant number until you factor in that Nicholas was an important force behind two other significant church planting networks: Acts 29 and Redeemer City to City. Nicholas’ Church Planting Network may not have impressive numbers, at least according to its website, but his congregation, Spanish River, helped to plant close to forty other churches in the PCA, including Keller’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church. It is hard not to imagine that the idea for Keller’s Redeemer City to City network of churches came from Nicholas’ own Church Planting Network.

But even more impressive, if you’re of the New School Presbyterian worldview, is Nicholas’ connection to Mark Driscoll and the Acts 29 Network. According to the Acts 29 website:

Pastor Mark Driscoll founded the Acts 29 Network with Nicholas in 2000. Nicholas was influential in starting many current Acts 29 churches, and provided much support for many of our church planters.

The list of congregations associate with Acts 29 is too long to count – though it does feature some nifty logos (which also make the page a bit tardy in loading) – but it indicates another successful network that traces its roots to Nicholas. I am almost tempted to say that Nicholas is the man behind the Gospel Coalition since his fingerprints are all over two of the larger celebrities in that phalanx of Christian allies. Which makes Nicholas the leaven for yet another network of congregations, since the Gospel Coalition is also web of congregations.

And just when we were finished with Presbyterian networks comes news of yet another Presbyterian connection of congregations, in this case a group of churches from the mainline PCUSA who have finally concluded that their denomination is “deathly ill.” As such, these pastors believe a new form of connection is important for Presbyterian conservatives:

We believe the PC(USA) will not survive without drastic intervention, and stand ready to DO something different, to thrive as the Body of Christ. We call others of like mind to envision a new future for congregations that share our Presbyterian, Reformed, Evangelical heritage. If the denomination has the ability and will to move in this new direction, we will rejoice. Regardless, a group of us will change course, forming a new way for our congregations to relate. We hate the appearance of schism – but the PC(USA) is divided already. Our proposal only acknowledges the fractured denomination we have become.

In which case, the answer to Moore’s column is this: Presbyterians abandoned the structures that made their denominations tick – such instrumentalities as sessions, presbyteries, synods, and assemblies for overseeing the ministry of word and sacrament. Instead of being Presbyterian, many Presbyterians find more congenial surroundings in locales where the schmoozing, entrepreneurialism and informal alliance-building are characteristic of being the church. Have they swapped Presbyterianism for Rotarianism? Maybe so.

This is a revealing development on two levels. The first is the fading cachet of Presbyterianism itself as a religious and theological brand. Time was in the not so distant past when saying you were Presbyterian was to indicate that you were part of a broad swath of American Protestantism that was respectable, reliable, dignified, and even refined. Granted, such cultural Presbyterianism was too much bound up with the mainstream Protestant project of aiding and abetting the American way as the Protestant way. Still, being Presbyterian was desirable because it connoted a certain seriousness of purpose – like DuPont or IBM.

For conservatives outside the mainline, being Presbyterian said less about being from the right social circles and more about identifying with the Reformation and its wonder-working powers in reshaping western civilization. To be Presbyterian was to draw a connection to John Calvin and John Knox, and to place yourself within a certain trajectory of European history and the West’s heritage. To be sure, Presbyterianism was more than history or cultural significance, but it suggested a faith and worship that was older, weightier, and more profound than fundamentalism or dispensationalism.

But Presbyterianism no longer has such cultural resonance. The networkers seem to have calculated that they have less to lose by abandoning an older identity for a new constellation of congregations orbiting around a single congregation, visionary pastor, or – better yet – celebrity preacher.

The second oddity about the current Presbyterian penchant for networking is how little consideration its advocates seem to give to the ephemeral character of these ties. Say what you will about denominations, they last in ways that networks do not. Does anyone remember the Moral Majority? How about the Evangelical Alliance? So why will Acts 29 survive the career of Mark Driscoll or Redeemer City to City outlive Tim Keller? Once Jack Miller, the founder of one of Presbyterianism’s original networks, the New Life phenomenon, New Life Presbyterian congregations have persisted but the buzz no longer fizzes. So if you are a congregation looking for a larger set of associations, you may think that Acts 29 is a solid bet. But will you actually receive any of the care and oversight that a Presbyterian denomination provides through its – yes dull – but effective structures?

Of course, the more important question is whether God has ordained networks to feed his flock. Granted, some will likely argue that denominations have no such divine imprimatur. But because Presbyterian denominations do have sessions, presbyteries, and assemblies, they are actually far more biblical than any network of churches, no matter how Calvinistic its celebrity leader or creative its congregations’ logos.

Correction: The Evangelical Presbyterian Church claims approximately 115,000 members. (Thanks to one of our scrupulous readers.)

But Keller does not seem to like being confined to either-or’s and he also apparently thinks that many of the errors in church history stem precisely from binary situations. His foreword to a new book by former Bush administration staffers on Christianity and politics (posted at the Gospel Coalition blog) exhibits precisely the tendency to identify extremism and run to the other side – but only so far, of course.

Here is Keller’s take on H. Richard Niebuhr:

In the mid-twentieth-century, H. Richard Niebuhr wrote his classic Christ and Culture, which helped mainline Christian churches think through ways to relate faith to politics. In the end, Niebuhr came down on the side of universalism, the view that ultimately God is working to improve things through all kinds of religions and political movements. The result of his work was to lead mainline Protestant churches to become uncritical supporters of a liberal political agenda (though Niebuhr himself opposed such a move).

Now, as the recent Pew Forum poll indicated, most Americans do not know their nation’s church history that well and Keller should not be faulted for getting Niebuhr wrong. At the time that the older brother of Reinhold wrote Christ and Culture, mainline Protestants were firmly in the Republican fold and also very bullish on maintaining a Christian America and a Christian world order. After all, H. Richard’s brother was a prominent supporter of the Cold War and one of the architects of anti-communist foreign policy in the Eisenhower administration was the Presbyterian, John Foster Dulles. In fact, the folks in the orbit of Union Seminary (NYC) were so bullish on a Christian America that their rhetoric foreshadowed that of Jerry Fallwell some thirty years later.

In which case, if Keller is going to use history to avoid its mistakes, he should try to avoid mistaken readings of history.

But this is not Keller’s only appeal to history. He goes on in the foreword to answer the objections of evangelicals who say that politics is “a distraction, that we should concentrate fully on the only important things—the defense of orthodox doctrine and the evangelism of the world.” I wish I knew of such evangelicals. I doubt Keller comes across many of them in New York and you can’t even find them at Bob Jones University these days where Keller’s rhetoric of transformationalism has more appeal that the school’s former fundamentalist denunciations of worldliness. Still, to counter the fundamentalist argument, Keller appeals to the errors of history:

. . . as the authors point out, in 1930s Germany, a faulty understanding of how Christianity relates to the political contributed to the disaster of Nazism, which in turn meant the loss of the German Lutheran Church’s credibility, evangelistic witness, and even orthodoxy. Something similar happened in South Africa, where an orthodox Reformed theology, invoking the views of Abraham Kuyper, created a civil religion that supported apartheid, and as a consequence has suffered incalculable loss to its standing in the eyes of the people. Ironically, the Lutherans followed a two-kingdom approach to Christ and culture, in which Christians are not to bring their faith into politics, while Reformed Christianity has been characterized by a view that Christians are supposed to transform culture. Both approaches, when not applied thoughtfully and wisely, have led to cultural, political, and ultimately spiritual disaster.

Several oddities stand out in this historical judgment. Just how many Americans after fighting a war against Germany twenty years earlier were sitting by their wireless, waiting to hear what the Lutheran Churches in Germany were saying about anything, let alone National Socialism? Lutherans never had a lot of credibility with Anglo-American Protestants, not even the American Lutheran communions.

But even odder about the assessment of Lutherans is the juxtaposition with Kuyperians. Keller does well to remember that the political failings of Protestants have been not simply on the Lutheran side. Reformed Protestants have to answer for their own performance.

And yet, Keller’s conclusion does not follow. He says that Lutherans lost their credibility for National Socialism and Dutch-African Reformed for apartheid. And yet, where has Kuyper lost any credibility with American Protestants – even Keller himself – who still rally under the banner of “every square inch”? In other words, if the German churches’ acquiescence to Hitler makes 2k theology suspect, why doesn’t neo-Calvinist support for apartheid make Kuyperianism suspect? And yet, it is the Kuyperian-flavored transformationalism that Keller himself consumes and that also accounts for some of the more vigorous critiques of 2k.

So instead of trying to avoid the errors of the past, perhaps Keller and others who appeal to history for directions in the present should understand that the past is complicated, its actors flawed, and that bad things happen to good causes. 2k theology did not create Hitler any more than neo-Calvinism is responsible for apartheid. History has no single causes. History also yields no consequences that disprove ideas. If Keller wants to argue against 2k theology or fundamentalist otherworldliness, fine. But guilt-by-association is not a good form of thinking. I suspect that even Piper agrees.

If a liberal arts college says that it teaches such a thing, then doctrine is surely important. All world and life views are doctrinal, after all; and a Christian one is presumably constituted by Christian doctrine in some basic way Further, as the very term indicates total comprehensiveness, the teaching of such a thing does not seem to me to require any less clarity on doctrine at a foundational level than the curriculum at a seminary would so do (albeit the curricula at the two types of institution might be markedly very different). . . .

Just to be clear: all this `Christian world life view’ talk is not my language. I am myself very uncomfortable with it because it fails to respect difference among Christians; but I do not consider it inappropriate to ask those who do use this language with such confidence to explain it to me; to explain, for example, why they use the singular not the plural; and what are the doctrines that can be set to one side as matters indifferent when constructing this singular Christian world life view?

For myself, I am very comfortable with the view of the world expressed in the Westminster Standards. The theology therein profoundly expresses my view of life, the universe and all that. Does that mean I deny the name Christian to someone who is, say, an Arminian or a Lutheran or an Anabaptist or a Catholic? . . . .

The result: my concern for doctrinal indifferentism at a Christian College arises not out of a seminary-college category confusion but rather out of my belief that one huge mythological misconception is simply being allowed to continue unchallenged: that there is `a [singular] Christian life and world view’ that can be separated as some kind of Platonic ideal from the phenomena of particular confessional commitment, whether Reformed, Anabaptist or whatever. It is time to come clean: we need to speak of Christian life and world views (plural) and we need to acknowledge that those who talk of such in the singular are more than likely privileging their particular view of the world (including their politics — Left and Right) as the normative Christian one, and thus as being essentially beyond criticism and scrutiny — whether that view is doctrinally complex or indifferent to all but being `born again.’

Again, this is very well said and evokes Oldlife objections to neo-Calvinism. How many times does you need to point to the Christian Reformed Church and see that melange of bullish worldviewism and doctrinal incompetence before establishing the unreliability of a Reformed world and life view? How many times do we need to hear about a Reformed view of “Will & Grace” before we begin to ask about a Reformed view of the sacred assembly on the Lord’s Day? Granted, keepers of the Dooyeweerdian flame will insist that King’s College and D’Souze are not the real deal; their worldviews do not run on the high octane of Reformed philosophy. That only raises the more basic objection of who made philosophers God? When did epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics trump the doctrines of God, man, Christ, salvation, the Holy Spirit, and the church? (Hint: 1898.)

Meanwhile, further indications of the unreliability of neo-Calvinism come from David Bahnsen, the son of THE Bahnsen, whose flame for neo-Calvinism drew energy from project of establishing Christ’s Lordship over all areas of life. According to Bahnsen, who is a financial planner living in Southern California:

The brilliant Dinesh D’Souza is the new President of King’s College in New York. Dinesh is a good friend, a superb scholar, an accomplished apologist, and in my opinion, a wonderful pick for this fantastic college to help provide vision and guidance as they advance into the next phase of their institutional development. Dinesh also is a Roman Catholic, though he is married to an evangelical, attends an evangelical church, and has been widely accepted in evangelical circles for several years as a respected thought leader. Dinesh is better known as a socio-political commentator than he is a theologian, but of course most people do not regard the primary qualification in the job of “college president” to be “theologian”.

The hiring of Dinesh D’Souza is an exciting thing for me as one who is very fond of the work King’s College is doing, and very fond of Dinesh in particular. I also consider the provost at King’s College, Dr. Marvin Olasky, to be one of the premier intellects in American society. I have often said that his The Tragedy of American Compassion is an utter masterpiece, and I believe his work at both World magazine and King’s College to be inspiring examples of Kingdom-building. Marvin is both a mentor to me and dear friend. I am deeply grateful to know him.

To the objections that Trueman raises, Bahnsen displays the nakedness of the neo-Calvinist royal jewels:

However, the implicit lesson in this response to Dinesh’s hiring is that Reformational theology is exclusively about soteriology and sacramentology. This is patently absurd. There is a valuable and vital element to catholic social thought which is undeniably important in worldview training. The contributions of a Dinesh D’ Souza in the contemporary scene go far beyond those things that Trueman considers so trivial (you know, unimportant disciplines like economics and political science). True, Dinesh may not line up with a lot of Protestant thought on the really, really important things like predestination and church discipline (though perhaps he does, or perhaps he will), but maybe a little more genuinely Reformed thought is needed here? For those of us who see our evangelical Reformed theology as a comprehensive world and life view, maybe, just maybe, Dinesh is far more qualified than the Carl Truemans of the world could possibly understand.

So now political science and economics have pushed aside philosophy. At least epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics have some otherworldiness going for them. But as is typical of the immanentizers of the eschaton, disciplines like politics and economics are even more vital in establishing Christ’s reign.

Maybe the real lesson is that justification is an idea with consequence.

One curious aspect of this move – aside from giving up a very handsome building and reasonably good location – is that no one seems to notice or care. A search at Google for news stories reveals that no editors, even religious ones, have the New World’s oldest presbytery on their horizon. But when the Mormons plan to build a Temple in Center City, well, now you’re talking news copy and readers.

Another consideration is what this move may indicate about the declining fortunes of the mainline Protestant churches. Back in 1989 the United Churches of Christ moved from its Manhattan offices to Cleveland. Nothing wrong with the latter city, and maybe the UCC staff were able to enjoy Lebron’s exploits (they sure beat the Knick’s recent performance). But I’m not sure an NBA game makes up in stature for headquarters in the Big Apple. Tim Keller likely agrees.

Presbyterians had actually begun the trend of denominational downsizing by leaving New York City’s high overhead and big britches reputation to bridge the gap between bureaucrats and regular church folk. After the 1983 merger of the UPCUSA (North) and the PCUS (South) into the present iteration of the PCUSA, the mainline denomination in 1988 gave up its New York City address for Louisville, the biggest city in the old border state of Kentucky. (Another consequence of the merger was that the denomination could not maintain both archival centers, the one in Philadelphia at the Presbyterian Historical Society and the one in Montreat, NC, at the Montreat Historical Society. In 2005 the denomination decided to move the southern materials to Philadelphia, where they are in very good hands but farther from the hands most willing to sort through them.)

Now the denomination’s oldest presbytery is moving its offices from the center of Philadelphia to one of its peripheral neighborhoods. The presbytery’s website gives no reason but the “for sale” sign on the old location suggests that cheaper real estate is a factor. Mt. Airy is a fine neighborhood but it is not Center City nor was it part of William Penn’s original boundaries for his “Holy Experiment.” The move is a significant development in the life of New World Presbyterianism. But no one seems to care. They don’t even know.

Comity has meant different things to different people. We representatives of the home missions agencies and committees or boards of our denominations resist territorial statements on comity in the light of the social and cultural complexity of North American society and the great spiritual need of our many countrymen who are apart from Jesus Christ. Out of a concern to build the church of Jesus Christ rather than our own denominations and to avoid the appearance of competition, we affirm the following courteous code of behavior to guide our church planting ministries in North America:

1. We will be sensitive to the presence of existing churches and mission ministries of other NAPARC churches and will refrain from enlisting members and take great care in receiving members of those existing ministries.

2. We will communicate with the equivalent or appropriate agency (denominational missions committee or board, presbytery missions or church extension committee, or session) before initiating church planting activities in a community where NAPARC churches or missions ministries exist.

3. We will provide information on at least an annual basis describing progress in our ministries and future plans.

4. We will encourage our regional home missions leadership to develop good working relationships.

I raised concerns about the failure of each side to abide by the terms of the comity agreement. I illustrated my worries by mentioning two cities where conservative Presbyterian churches already existed and the other denomination went ahead anyway with a plant of its own. I did not mention “sheep stealing,” but that was how some interpreted my remarks. Since the PCA is a lot bigger than the OPC, some may have also inferred that I was taking issue more with the PCA than the OPC. Taking members in good standing from another congregation is a legitimate reason to object to a church plant, but not really the one I had in mind when I more or less made an off hand remark about comity agreements and also illustrated the point with examples my fading memory scanned and found.

The difficulties surrounding comity agreements have less to do with the transfer of members between communions than with the state of church planting among conservative Presbyterians. One concern first has to do with the market mentality that seems to go with home missions in the United States, the second with the branding of churches that follows said mentality.

In the good old days, denominations planted churches when a group of families (usually from the home denomination) found themselves in a new setting without a congregation from their communion. If the families numbered as many as five, the home missions committee would designate funds and find a church planter to minister to the group in hopes of establishing a settled work. To be sure, and the OPC has some examples of this, home missions executives would think about “strategic” locations for new churches in order for the denomination to gain a reputation and presence among a larger section of the American public. But generally speaking, home missions leaders went where groups of people wanted their services. No core group, no church plant.

Today, the model appears to be different and more like a business. Certain locations are highly desirable, these places have no Presbyterian churches, and denominational leaders decide to start a work or two there. This mentality would appear (I know nothing about business and marketing) to follow the logic of companies who have a product and are looking for ways to increase patrons and profits. Granted, we live in a voluntary church setting, so every congregation needs to “market” itself to gain members who will then pay for the church “services.” At the same time, a strategic outlook has led conservative Reformed denominations to look more at the potential for growth and visibility as a reason for home missions than a duty to send pastors to those places where existing church members can find no church.

Another aspect of contemporary home missions logic is the idea that Presbyterians should be able to plant as many churches as there are Americans. I am not sure anyone actually has a manual of population density, roads, health of the local economy, zoning regulations, etc. before thinking about planting churches across the USA. But because home missions is in the business of evangelism, and because the logic of the Great Commission is to take the gospel everywhere, home missions types tend to equate church planting with evangelism and the mandate to leave no soul unturned.

The problem is that as much as every American (and resident of the earth, for that matter) needs to hear the gospel, not every place can sustain a Presbyterian church. Once the novelty of being missional, for instance, wears off, and once denominational funding runs out, a church plant finds itself in the surprising position of being a settled congregation in maintenance mode, no longer being cutting edge but adjusting to the routine if not the boredom of the same people, each Sunday, year after year. Maintenance is a good thing. After all, sheep in a flock need to be fed and prepared for slaughter (read: die a good death). Shepherds who run off to new flocks and abandon old ones are not what our Lord had in mind when he taught about the Good Shepherd.

So missional inevitably morphs into maintenance and then denominational leaders need to consider how many congregations a locale can sustain. Actually, they should have thought about this before thinking strategically about a city or region and planting missional churches. But it is a serious question. Can a city of 300,000 support seven Presbyterian congregations, all of them conservative? Does a city of 500,000 have enough unchurched who might come to four Presbyterian churches? I know this may sound like Finney, trying to calibrate the work of the Holy Spirit. At the same time, Calvinists have a pretty good sense that not everyone is elect, and know there are ordinarily limits to the sovereign working of the Spirit. They also have a sense of stewardship and recognize that pastors and their families need to eat, and that ordinarily the Holy Spirit does not do home delivery. In which case, church planters might do well to turn to sociologists at least to understand the dynamics of communities, churches, and their sustainability. Meanwhile, the agrarian in me says that if farmers should know what the carrying capacity of a certain kind of soil is, church planters need to consider a similar dynamic. If an area like New England, that has not had a history of supporting Presbyterian churches, becomes the strategic place for church planting, shouldn’t the denominational executives consider why the soil in the North East is harder than the mid-Atlantic region when it comes to Reformed seeds?

So if part of my concern about comity agreements is about what seems to be the naivete of “strategic” church planting (I put it in quotes because it doesn’t seem very strategic to be ignorant of a place’s capacity to sustain Presbyterian churches), the other goes to the techniques necessary to plant a “Presbyterian” church in an over saturated church market (I put it in quotes because often the methods are not Presbyterian).

If part of the basis for a comity agreement is the notion that the communions entering the agreement are “of like faith and practice,” it does not make a lot of sense to establish a church in a community with an abundance of churches if it is going to offer the same goods and services as the existing congregation. Of course, this is not a problem for Starbucks or McDonald’s where consistency of product is precisely what makes a franchise work. Someone back at headquarters needs to calculate how many frappucinos can be sold in a day within a city of 350,000 potential drinkers, but once the math is complete, the companies’ engines are finely tuned up to deliver the same fructose, burnt coffee, and whipped cream to every single Starbucks store.

The demands of franchising and the consistency of brand, however, do not appear to apply to Presbyterian churches. One congregation may be traditional (read: 1950s United States), another neo-Puritan, another contemporary, and still another blended (read: incoherent). In which case, a town may support a new Presbyterian home missions work if it offers a liturgical recipe different from the existing church. This is even true for congregations within the same denomination. Within the metropolitan Philadelhpia area, the OPC has almost as many flavors (the high-church topping is somewhat beyond the finances of the average Orthodox Presbyteiran) as the PCA.

The variety of approaches to being and worshiping as a Presbyterian is likely the greatest challenge to comity agreements. Many a church plant can justify its existence by saying that its product and delivery will reach a demographic different from an established work. As true as this may be (although the cultural diversity of OPC and PCA churches would strike a modern-day Tocqueville as extraordinarily thin), this diversity seriously undermines claims to be “of like faith and practice.” John Frame and I swatted this one around almost fifteen years ago and I am still convinced that Reformed theology and ministry normally assumes an appropriate form that should prevail in all churches claiming to be Presbyterian. I am also convinced that congregations that vary greatly from the sobriety, decency, orderliness – not to mention the reverence – implied and explicitly stated in the Reformed creeds and catechisms are letting their practices alter their faith.

These reflections may explain the comments made during the interview at Reformed Forum. The latter were the tip of an iceberg that may be responsible for sinking the good ship Conservative Presbyterian, U.S.A. The worship wars and church growth theories – from McGavren to McLaren are sucking the vitals from Reformed confessionalism in North America. But I need to live with it because the current flavors of Presbyterianism – like the menus of Applebees and Cheese Cake Factory (why would anyone eat at a factory?) – are what the Reformed market place will bear.