The fuel of worship is a true vision of the greatness of God;

the fire that makes the fuel burn white hot is the quickening of the Holy Spirit;

the furnace made alive and warm by the flame of truth is our renewed spirit;

and the resulting heat of our affections is powerful worship, pushing its way out in confessions, longings, acclamations, tears, songs, shouts, bowed heads, lifted hands, and obedient lives.

Fire metaphors aside, some of what Piper writes is sensible, such as the idea that God’s greatness undergirds worship, or that true worship depends on the work of the Holy Spirit. What is troubling is the criteria Piper uses to evaluate Spirit-filled worship. Do we really want to put shouts and tears and lifted hands on a par with confessions and songs? In my-all-about-me-church the only person raising his hands is the Reformed pastor at the beginning and end of the service.

To put Piper’s spiritual arsonry in perspective, confessionalists may need a little spiritual quenching from the teaching of Reformed churches:

Under the gospel, when Christ, the substance, was exhibited, the ordinances in which this covenant is dispensed are the preaching of the Word, and the administration of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper: which, though fewer in number, and administered with more simplicity, and less outward glory, yet, in them, it is held forth in more fullness, evidence and spiritual efficacy, to all nations, both Jews and Gentiles; and is called the new testament. There are not therefore two covenants of grace, differing in substance, but one and the same, under various dispensations. (Confession 7.6)

This is a significant difference between confessionalism and pietism. Pietists believe that for worship to become white hot, the work of the Spirit must be visible, even tangible. Confessionalists, in contrast, actually believe that the more the Spirit is at work in worship, the simpler and more invisible the Spirits work will be.

But Piper’s version of “Reformed” worship is what happens when you redact the 16th through the 18th century. Cherry picking indeed.

Controversies swirl around celebrity pastors and their best-selling books. Evangelicals unite across denominational lines to share resources and strategize together for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom. New thought emerging from Europe demands a response. Divisions arise between those who emphasize personal piety and others who prioritize the sacraments in the Christian life. Developments in science force Christians to reconsider their understanding of Genesis.

The author, Andy Jones, a PCA pastor in North Carolina, continues:

The seminary originally aimed to produce men of great learning and vital piety. The leaders of Princeton were men who advocated for Calvinism and the Great Awakening. They were Reformed revivalists. In the classroom, they introduced their students to the biblical languages and the Latin edition of Francis Turrentin’s Institutes. Yet they also emphasized the necessity of personal piety. Their goal was to produce ministers who were biblically grounded, theologically enlightened, and spiritually awakened. By establishing a seminary that linked together vigorous learning and piety, the founders hoped that “blessings may flow to millions while we are sleeping in the dust.”

Though governed by Presbyterians, Princeton Seminary welcomed students from diverse backgrounds. It graduated men who became leaders in Presbyterian, Episcopal, and Baptist churches. Among Princeton’s first graduates was Charles Hodge, who would become the seminary’s leading influence in the 19th century. Another early graduate and Hodge’s best friend was John Johns, a leader among Episcopalians and ultimately the president of William and Mary. One of Hodge’s students, James Petigru Boyce, became the founding professor of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

In the 19th century, Princeton was a leader among conservative evangelicals in America. It was the “grand central station” for the “young, restless, and Reformed.” Through The Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, a prominent voice in 19th-century religious journalism, it apprised Presbyterians of the latest thinking among biblical scholars, engaged in controversies facing the church, and responded to challenges in the surrounding culture.

In other words, PTS was the Gospel Coalition of the nineteenth century — revivalistic, interdenominational, devout, and informed.

This is one way of interpreting PTS but it is highly selective since it leaves out the less reassuring bits about Princeton’s Old School tradition — Hodge’s criticisms of the First Great Awakening, Samuel Miller’s defense of something close to jure divino Presbyterianism, the seminary’s cultivation of polemical theology, its insistence on infant baptism, and its legacy in institutions like Westminster Seminaries and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Old Schoolers like myself have not ignored Princeton’s experimental Calvinistic side and some of us have even explored the tensions between revivalism and confessionalism that the Princetonians may not themselves acknowledged. But at least we have not denied the uncomfortable parts of PTS’ past. I would hope the Gospel Co-Allies would do the same.

Meanwhile, this is the second time in the recent past where GC advocates have appealed to historical precedents for their alliance. One commenter here invoked seventeenth-century British Protestantism and its kaleidoscope of Puritans, Independents, Presbyterians, and Baptists. He left out the Quakers and failed to acknowledge that these groups did not found a parachurch agency but went into separate churches. Now comes an attempt to draw parallels between the GC and PTS. Be careful with those pits.

I do not understand why GC historians don’t liken themselves to the most obvious precedent — the neo-evangelicals of the 1940s. Leading that group was Harold John Ockenga, Carl Henry, and Billy Graham. They too set up non-denominational institutions to draw in “conservative” Protestants of all stripes. And they also drew inspiration from Princeton Seminary. As George Marsden shows, PTS was very much on the minds of Fuller Seminary’s founders.

The trouble with appeals to Old Princeton like the neo-evangelicals and GC’s is that they ignore the side of the seminary that spooks pietists — the polemics not only against liberals but also against “conservatives.” PTS did welcome students from all churches. But you cannot find a bigger critic of Finney, holiness, Wesleyanism, perfectionism, New School Presbyterianism, Taylorism, biblical criticism, and Darwin. Old Princeton knew how to say “no.” Does the Gospel Coalition?

One way to answer this question without long reflection is to compare Mark Driscoll to Charles Hodge. Puhleeze. If Hodge were living today, he would take Driscoll to the woodshed (that is, unless Driscoll’s powers of clairvoyance alerted him to Hodge’s approach).

Maybe you are the kind of donor who supports nonprofits in your community. Like many Americans, you give or tithe through your church or temple. You support local human-service organizations that provide direct aid to the needy, infirm, and down-and-out. You contribute to your alma mater, local theatre company, community hospital, or library-building campaign.

Perhaps, too, your giving is influenced by your family members, colleagues, and close friends in your church, business, or neighborhood. You give out of a genuine sense of caring and gratitude for those people, places, and institutions to which you are geographically, psychologically, or spiritually connected.

If these sensible and natural forms of charitable giving describe your philanthropy, then Do More Than Give: The Six Practices of Donors Who Change the World is not for you. This fast-paced encomium to good intentions grounded in strategy and directed by experts is aimed at a special breed of philanthropist—a breed so special that it is honored with its own moniker: catalytic philanthropists, intent on changing the world.

The same kind of difference applies to the religious world and separates the churchly Protestant from the born-again believer who flocks to the parachurch organizations and their conferences in search of that fix that the local, mom-and-pop – okay, dominie only – church provides. If the idea of philanthropy is not to change the world, so the idea of confessionalism is about perseverance, pilgrimage, and waiting for the only transformer who is capable of changing the world.

The review is short and well worth a read. Aside from the point it makes about philanthropy, it also illustrates the difference between a worldview that holds to abstract truths as opposed to a profession of faith with concrete loyalties. Viewers of the world – perhaps because they don’t live in it – invariably want to change the world and think they have ideas capable of doing so. Confessionalists know that ideas don’t change the world (God does) and understand that those who attribute such power to ideas border on folly, never considering ironically the impotence of human reason. Chances are, though, that the people who are supposed to be the smartest in the room – the ones with all the philosophy and epistemology and theory – won’t ever intuit this dilemma because the people who object to worldview in favor of intuition can’t theorize their instincts. And without a theory, as all worldviewers know, knowledge is inconsequential.

But why is an affirmation of divine sovereignty Reformed? It is just as much Lutheran as it is Reformed. It is in fact basically true of Christianity to affirm the sovereignty of God. That business in the Nicene Creed about “maker of heaven and earth” does point in the direction of a divine being sufficiently powerful to create everything and then govern and maintain it all.

So why don’t we call the new evangelical resurgence of interest in divine sovereignty Lutheran instead of Reformed? After all, there is nothing about the young and restless that is explicitly Reformed other than the Jonathan Edwards is My Home Boy t-shirts (and Edwards, for all his genius, is not exactly the standard for Reformed Protestantism).

One explanation may be evangelicals mistakenly think of themselves as Reformed because they are following the lead of Reformed Protestants themselves. The latter are more inclined to think of themselves as evangelical than as Reformed. In turn, this tendency cultivates an atmosphere where Reformed Protestants look, speak, and act like evangelicals. In which case, the reason that evangelicals don’t consider themselves Lutheran – though they do affirm as much of Lutheranism as they do of Reformed Protestantism – and don’t make Martin Luther is My Home Boy t-shirts is that Lutheranism is not a comfortable environment for evangelicals.

Evidence of this tension comes from Kevin DeYoung’s recent interview with the Lutheran pastor, Paul T. McCain (sounds pretty Scottish and not very German). To the question of whether Lutherans consider themselves part of American evangelicalism, McCain responded:

I do not think that most Lutherans consider themselves to be American Evangelicals. We tend to think of ourselves first, and foremost, simply as Lutheran Christians. I must say in light of the fact that conservative Lutherans do have a single book by which they can identify themselves, doctrinally, we find trying to nail down precisely what “Evangelicalism” is a bit like an exercise in nailing jello to a wall, and that kind of gives us the heebie-jeebies. That’s a technical term.

And in a follow up question about differences between Reformed and Lutheran Protestants, McCain had this intriguing response:

We are keen on emphasizing the proper distinction between God’s Law, that shows us our sin, and God’s Gospel, that shows us our Savior and we emphasize God’s objective work through both His Word and His Sacraments. The “S” word makes our Evangelical friends very nervous, but we hold and cherish the Sacraments and really believe that God works saving faith by the power of His promising Word through Baptism. We also believe that the Lord’s Supper is our Lord Christ’s own dear body and blood, actually under, with and in the bread and wine, for us Christians to eat and drink, and that through it we receive forgiveness and life, and wherever there is forgiveness and life, there is salvation.

Now, of course, Lutherans and Reformed disagree on the Lord’s Supper and have ever since 1529. But why are Reformed Protestants any more appealing to evangelicals than Lutherans on sacramental grounds. After all, Reformed Protestants also have sacramental teachings and practices that would scare evangelicals if they ever went beyond the first question and answer of the Shorter Catechism. Does baptism come to mind? Plus, the Reformed churches’ teaching on the Supper – from the Belgic Confession to the Westminster Confession – is no more agreeable to most evangelicals (whoever they are) than the Book of Concord.

So again I find it very strange that many seem to think that Reformed and evangelical go together when as many wrinkles exist between these expressions of Protestants as between evangelicals and Lutherans. Could it be that if Reformed Protestants were as serious about being Reformed as Lutherans have been about being Lutheran the young and restless would simply be content with calling themselves Baptist?

This is another way of saying that personal knowledge and friendship appear to be significant elements in the reactions from famous evangelical Reformed figures to the news about C. J. Mahaney and the difficulties besetting SGM. Al Mohler has issued a statement of full confidence in Mahaney and so Ligon Duncan has recently issued a statement over at Reformation 21 which includes this:

It is clear that far from a scandalous cover up, our brothers at Sovereign Grace are taking these matters with utter seriousness and are endeavoring to walk in Gospel repentance and humility and fidelity. C.J. knows of my complete love and respect for him. And my brethren at Sovereign Grace know of my support and prayers for them. . . . I want to emphasize that we fully respect the process that SGM is taking to review the entire situation and that we have no intention whatsoever of joining in the adjudicating of this case in the realm of the internet – a practice as ugly as it is unbiblical.

Here’s the problem. For schlubs like me, who have had no personal interaction with Mahaney, the only information I have to go on are those formal statements that describe SGM’s work. And when I go to the website of SGM I discover that Sovereign Grace churches are weak on the sacraments, have no presbyterian polity, and also include statements friendly to charismatic views of the Holy Spirit. These official teachings and practices have nothing to do (as far as any of us know) with the current difficulties at SGM. C.J. may be guilty or innocent no matter what SGM teaches and does.

But those formal statements would be enough for me not to have personal knowledge of C.J., at least the kind that comes from parachurch conferences, networks, and alliances. All serious Reformed church members and officers, of course, may and do participate with non-Reformed in a host of voluntary organizations. You cannot exist in civil society and not participate with Baptists, Mormons, or Roman Catholics at the Parent Teachers Association, or at the committee for expanding the local library, or on the Chamber of Commerce. You might even participate with non-Reformed in religious endeavors like a college or a magazine.

But if an association or organization calls itself a ministry, I am not sure how such cooperation can exist. The reason has to do with the word “ministry” itself. It invariably goes with “the word” as in minister the word of God (except for the neo-Calvinist/evangelical clutter of “every member ministry”). And when we talk about ministry in this way, we are in the ballpark of ordination, ecclesiology, sacraments, worship, and doctrine. Ministry as such should be confessional. Cross-confessional ministries undermine confessionalism. (And if an organization has the word “gospel” in its name and does not call itself a ministry then it should cease its activities because ministering the gospel is of the essence of ministry.)

So again, I am in a dilemma regarding the current situation at SGM. I have a knowledge of C.J. that only comes from formal statements that would prevent me from entering into ministry relationships with him. And not having those ministry relationships I have no personal knowledge that he is a worthwhile friend and colleague. At the same time, I have friends and acquaintances who are assuring me that everything is basically okay with C.J. and this advice stems from personal knowledge that is grounded in a cross-confessional ministry. Reassurances about C.J. would not be coming from evangelical Reformed types if those Reformed and Baptist figures were as particular in their understanding of ministry as anyone who takes seriously the visible church should be.

Of course, it is commendable for people to stand by their friends and I commend Duncan and Mohler for not doing the self-righteous thing of throwing Mahaney under the bus simply at the accusation of misconduct. Innocent until proven guilty works in both kingdoms.

But if friendship is really a function of fellowship and such fellowship is misbegotten on confessional grounds, then standing by one’s friend may really be a form of standing by a fellow minister while having no ecclesiastical basis or status for doing so.

So I remain ignorant of C.J.’s personal charms because I remain separate from Sovereign Grace Ministries.

All of this is to say that Al and are friends, we are co-authors, and we also affirm the five points of Calvinism.

But all of this coalition potential would not generate a second look at my candidacy if Southern Seminary had an opening in church history and I applied for the job. As Calvinistic as SBTS may be, it is also an agency of one of the conventions (Southern Baptist polity is so Byzantine) within the SBC. That means that my membership and identity as an Orthodox Presbyterian is a non-starter at Southern Seminary. What may be strike-two against me is my disbelief in evangelicalism. Strike three is a less than winning personality (though the Harts’ felines, Cordelia and Isabelle seem to enjoy my ornery companionship). Even aside from these other drawbacks, not being Southern Baptist is enough of a strike to count me out – like those backyard wiffle ball versions of home run derby which dispense with all three strikes.

So big an obstacle is my ecclesiastical identity that even if I joined the Gospel Coalition Al would still not have enough approving material in my dossier to recommend me to his board for a faculty appointment. Indeed, joining TGC would arguably deconstruct my efforts to deconstruct evangelicalism, and might even send the message that I am a kinder and gentler warrior child of J. Gresham Machen. But Gospel Coalition status still would not be enough for me to clear the hurdle of Southern Seminary’s faculty requirements.

For what it’s worth, when I was academic dean of Westminster California, if we had had an opening in theology and if Al had been interested in a change of scenery, his Calvinism and courageous and commendable stands against various theological and cultural ills would not have been enough to get him to the interview stage. His Southern Baptist credentials would have failed to meet the requirements for Westminster faculty. And in case this is not obvious by now, Al’s identity as a Southern Baptist would also disqualify him from holding office in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

This leaves us with the following set of memberships and identities:

The Southern Baptist Convention rejects D. G. Hart because he is Orthodox Presbyterian.

The ‘Gospel Coalition accepts Al Mohler and D. G. Hart no matter what their ecclesial identities (if they choose to join).

This picture would seem to make the Gospel Coalition a commendable organization in that it looks aside from seemingly petty ecclesiastical differences in order to unite seemingly conservative Protestants together in promotion of Christ as revealed in the gospel. And set of allegiances would also seem to depict the Southern Baptist Convention and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church as narrower and more divisive than the simple gospel of Jesus Christ and its proclamation.

Beneath this picture’s warm and alluring hues is the downside of the Gospel Coalition, namely, that they run their affairs as if the church does not matter, as if the gospel is independent of every church affiliation and membership (Protestant, that is). That may sound strong but ecclesiastical membership and ordination pose no apparent barrier to working with, attending, or speaking at the Coalition. The reason for setting up an organization free from denominational norms apparently is to get around the difficulty that confronts administrators at denominational seminaries and officers in churches: ecclesiastical standards are divisive and the creators of the Coalition seem to think that the gospel should not nurture such separation. For a confessional Protestant, this logic is a huge problem since confessionalists believe that the gospel not only inevitably produces good works but also is inevitably embodied in a disciplined ecclesiastical body. This is not, by the way, simply the oddity of hard-core Missouri Lutherans or vinegary Orthodox Presbyterians. It is also the outlook of Southern Baptist institutions like Southern Seminary (such as I understand it).

But an even deeper problem for the Gospel Coalition is that its cultivates its appeal through religious stars who have established their reputations not in parachurch ministries but through the churches themselves. In which case, the Gospel Coalition wants the results of the hard work of ordination and pastoral ministry in church settings without the baggage that comes in those ecclesiastical institutions. (And as long as the Gospel Coalition is an exclusively Protestant outfit, it will implicitly rely on differences that divided the Eastern and Western branches of the church, and on the churches that broke with Rome in the sixteenth century. Short of the new heavens and new earth, we can’t have Christianity in this world apart from the visible churches who translated the Bible, interpreted its teaching, established forms of worship, and determined qualifications for membership and office.)

Most if not all of the figures who attract the hearers and viewers of TGC materials and events are ministers. Their credentials come either from denominations or congregations. These communions are responsible for creating the spiritual capital that gives credibility to the Coalition’s speakers and authors. These pastors in turn add value to this capital by conducting successful ministries (leaving aside that thorny question of what constitutes success in the kingdom of God). The Coalition then assembles the most successful pastors, shorn of their denominational or congregational ties, either during the minutes it takes to conduct a Youtube video or over the course of several days at a conference. The Gospel Coalition adds no inherent value to the capital that these pastors and their churches have created and invested. No offense to Justin Taylor or Colin Hansen, but American evangelicals are not signing up to attend the Coalition conference because those young and restless editors and bloggers are speaking.

This leaves the Coalition with a product that is worth only a percentage of the ecclesiastical currency that the ministers (and the communions they represent) have created. To be sure, the gospel is of incomparable value. But Christ did not complete the gospel merely by his death, resurrection, and ascension. The last I checked, he commissioned apostles, inspired authors of sacred writings, ordained means of grace, gave instructions for planting churches, and included rules for those churches’ government and discipline. The reason would apparently be that sheep need shepherds, that believers need to hear the gospel longer than an evangelistic sermon lasts and learn of its implications for a longer time than at a two-day conference. They need to hear the gospel their entire life, and that means they need pastors and overseers who will be faithful, hence all the mechanisms to insure the creation and maintenance of sound pastoral ministry, and the rules governing how those ministers conduct worship and oversight.

Yet, the Gospel Coalition seems to regard all of this ecclesiastical work as incidental to the gospel, as a mere appurtenance. How else can one explain the indifference to the communions from which their speakers and leaders come? How else to explain that those speakers and leaders could not hold jobs or receive calls in the other speakers and leaders’ communions? For the sake of the Gospel Coalition’s gospel, those differences and separations are unimportant compared to the gospe.

But at institutions like Al Mohler’s Southern Baptist Seminary they do. For that reason, I’d rather live in the real world of respectful differences between the SBC and the OPC in their diverse efforts to follow all of Christ’s Great Commission (word, sacrament, and discipline) rather than the la la land of the Gospel Coalition where speakers and audiences act as if such differences don’t matter and where members of different communions are tempted to forget about the ecclesiastical vows and think that what happens in Chicago stays in Chicago.

Postscript on fellowship: Readers may be thinking that the point here about the church and the parachurch here make sense, but is there no room for pastors and members from different churches and denominations to fellowship together? Should the Banner of Truth stop offering conferences?

Part of the answer depends on what we mean by fellowship. If a Southern Baptist pastor cannot minister in the OPC without rejecting his former views on baptism and polity (for starters) and subscribing the OPC’s confession of faith, then it is fair to conclude that the OPC and the SBC are not in fellowship. And if a Southern Baptist transferring his membership into the OPC has to go through the same examination as someone who is a recent convert, then again fellowship is not the word we would use to describe this relationship.

Was it fellowship that I had with my parents when we prayed before meals, even though they were Baptists and I an Orthodox Presbyterian? Probably, but not in an ecclesial sense.

In which case, why do paraecclesial ideas about fellowship trump ecclesial ones? Why is a gathering of ministers at a Banner of Truth Conference more “sweet” than the relations among pastors and elders at a presbytery meeting? Or why is a Gospel Coalition conference (or a Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology, for that matter) more moving and invigorating than an ordinary Lord’s Day sandwiched by two preaching services?

It could be that the conferences are subjectively more moving than worship. Or it could be that spiritual standards, like the decline of cultural standards from watching too much television, have declined thanks to the prevalence of revivals, conferences, and retreats – all of those man-made devices for generating devotional excitement.

Of course, it is a free country. We do not have a federal agency regulating spiritual life (I don’t think they have one even in Moscow, Idaho). So parachurch agencies are free to have their conferences and American evangelicals are free to flock to them and feel warm and filled. At the same time, confessional Protestants are free to wonder what good these extra-ecclesial forms of fellowship are doing to the means that we do know God ordained through the clear teaching of his word. If the experiential Protestants are really serious about biblical inerrancy, wouldn’t you think they would want to be faithful to what God has inerrantly revealed about the means he has promised to use to save his people (even when they don’t feel “it”)?

When it comes to the Shorter Catechism (1647), you see much more detail (see below) about the layers and stages of the work of the Holy Spirit, not to mention the ordo salutis. You still don’t see any modern conception of conversion. The Divines were still thinking in terms of mortification and vivification over the course of a saint’s life. But effectual calling receives attention in a detailed way, and faith and repentance have descriptions that go beyond what the sixteenth-creeds or catechisms. (I suspect the influence here of Puritan practical or experimental divinity.)

Which then brings us to the American Presbyterian Church’s Plan of Union from 1758, a document that brought the Old Side (anti-revival) and New Side (pro-revival) back together in a hodge-podge of objective and subjective formula. What you see is even more detail regarding the inner workings of the Spirit than in the Shorter Catechism. Which is a puzzle to me. These Presbyterians already affirmed the Shorter Catechism. If they had only subscribed Heidelberg, they might have wanted a fuller statement of the Spirit’s work. But they had one. And they felt compelled to add girth to the Shorter Catechism’s already full figure. I suspect the influence of pietism and revivalism where the quest for spiritual authenticity requires ever greater levels of specifying the Spirit’s work.

Heidelberg Catechism
Q.21. What is true faith?
A: True faith is not only a certain knowledge, whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in his word, but also an assured confidence, which the Holy Ghost works by the gospel in my heart; that not only to others, but to me also, remission of sin, everlasting righteousness and salvation, are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merits.

Question 65. Since then we are made partakers of Christ and all his benefits by faith only, whence does this faith proceed?
Answer: From the Holy Ghost, (a) who works faith in our hearts by the preaching of the gospel, and confirms it by the use of the sacraments. (b)

Q 88. Of how many parts does the true conversion of man consist?
A: Of two parts; of the mortification of the old, and the quickening of the new man.

Q 89. What is the mortification of the old man?
A: It is a sincere sorrow of heart, that we have provoked God by our sins; and more and more to hate and flee from them.

Q 90. What is the quickening of the new man?
A: It is a sincere joy of heart in God, through Christ, and with love and delight to live according to the will of God in all good works.

Shorter Catechism
Q. 30. How doth the Spirit apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ?
A. The Spirit applieth to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling.

Q. 31. What is effectual calling?
A. 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 doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.

Q. 85. What doth God require of us that we may escape his wrath and curse due to us for sin?
A. To escape the wrath and curse of God due to us for sin, God requireth of us faith in Jesus Christ, repentance unto life, with the diligent use of all the outward means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption.

Q. 86. What is faith in Jesus Christ?
A. Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel.

Q. 87. What is repentance unto life?
A. Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience.

Plan of Union (1758)
. . . all mankind are naturally dead in trespasses and sins, an entire change of heart and life is necessary to make them meet for the service and enjoyment of God; that such a change can be only effected by the powerful operations of the Divine Spirit; that when sinners are made sensible of their lost condition and absolute inability to recover themselves, are enlightened in the knowledge of Christ and convinced of his ability and willingness to save, and upon gospel encouragements do choose him for the Saviour, and renouncing their own righteousness in point of merit, depend upon his imputed righteousness for their justification before God, and on his wisdom and strength for guidance and support; when upon these apprehensions and exercises their souls are comforted, notwithstanding all their past guilt, and rejoice in God through Jesus Christ; when they hate and bewail their sins of heart and life, delight in the laws of God without exception, reverentially and diligently attend his ordinances, become humble and self denied, and make it the business of their lives to please and glorify God and to do good to their fellow-men, – this is to be acknowledge as a gracious work of God, even though it should be attended with unusual bodily commotions or some more exceptionable circumstances, by means of infirmity, temptations or remaining corruptions; and wherever religious appearances are attended with the good effects above mentioned, we desire to rejoice in and thank God for them.

Obviously, I agree with DeYoung when he agrees with me (it is often usually about ME!). So I was glad to read in his post the following reflection based on Lost Soul:

I am sympathetic with much of this critique of evangelical pietism. I agree with Darryl Hart’s contention in The Lost Soul of American Protestantism that American evangelicalism has tried too hard to be relevant, has largely ignored organic church growth by catechesis, has too often elevated experience at the expense of doctrine, has minimized the role of the institutional church, and has worn out a good number of Christians by assuming that every churchgoer is an activist and crusader more than a pilgrim. Confessionalism would be good tonic for much of what ails the evangelical world.

Of course, I agree that confessionalism is good. But it is way more than a tonic. It is the cure for evangelicalism. As chauvinistic as it sounds, the Reformers who established confessional churches were following carefully the teaching of Scripture. For that reason, confessionalism is biblical and to depart from it is to be – well – unbiblical. If confessionalism is simply an option, an item on column A of the Chinese menu of Christian devotions, then it could be a nice side dish to accompany a large helping of evangelicalism, or maybe the sour to add to evangelical piety’s sweet. That is not the way confessionalists look at confessionalism. It is the right way and to depart from confessionalism is just plain wrong.

From this perspective, I wonder if DeYoung notices the way that evangelicalism has tinkered with confessionalism. Confessionalism came first, pietism and revivalism came later, and they were efforts to correct the confessional churches. In which case, if I embrace DeYoung’s effort to combine the best of confessionalism and pietism, I am in the odd situation of accepting that confessionalism has defects that need correction. I don’t see it that way. Of course, I am not going to say that confessionalism was perfect. But I’m not sure of its defects and I don’t recognize the ones that DeYoung thinks are there. And this is where the antagonism between confessionalism and pietism resides. What are the Reformed churches’ defects? Is pietism a remedy?

Consequently, a “but” is hovering near DeYoung’s agreement with Lost Soul:

And yet, I worry that confessionalism without a strong infusion of the pietism it means to correct, can be a cure just as bad as the disease. Is there a way to reject revivalism without discounting genuine revival in the Great Awakening? Can I like Machen and Whitefield? Is there a way to say, “Yes, the church has tried too hard to Christianize every area of life” while still believing that our private faith should translate into public action? Hart argues that after revivalism Christian devotion was no longer limited to “formal church activities on Sunday or other holy days,” but “being a believer now became a full-time duty, with faith making demands in all areas of life” (13). Given the thrust of the book, I think it’s safe to say Hart finds this troubling.

Ya thnk?

Again, if you look at the history of Protestantism, it is hard to see how evangelicalism has anywhere retained confessionalism. Wherever revival fires have burned, within a generation a high view of the means of grace, church office, sober and ordered worship, and church teaching has gone the way of smoke. If you look at revivals – you better not look too closely. Notice the shrieks, the fainting, the tears, the laughing, the revivalists’ egos (Whitefield was quite the self-promoter and Ban Franklin profited from that publicity) – they have always been there. These antics led critics to charge revivalism with enthusiasm. Let me be clear: pietism and revivalism are enthusiastic. Edwards tried to give enthusiasm a philosophical gloss. But some philosophers aren’t buying.

But what about the problem of dead orthodoxy? This would appear to be the major defect of confessionalism. According to DeYoung:

While I agree wholeheartedly that experience does not a Christian make, I wish the strong confessional advocates would do more to warn against the real danger of dead orthodoxy. It is possible to grow up in a Christian home, get baptized as an infant, get catechized, join the church, take the Lord’s Supper, be a part of a church your whole life and not be a Christian. It is possible to grow up in an Old World model where you inherit a church tradition (often along ethnic lines), and stay in that church tradition, but be spiritually dead. There are plenty of students at Hope College and Calvin College (just to name two schools from my tradition) who are thoroughly confessional as a matter of form, but not converted.

I know DeYoung didn’t mean it this way, but his reference to Calvin and Hope is a bit of a cheap shot against confessionalism. As if the CRC and the RCA are beacons of confessionalism. As if anyone in Reformed circles these days associates these communions with Reformed orthodoxy, dead or alive. I don’t write these words with glee. I was ordained in the CRC during the women’s ordination imbroglio and still have fond memories and good friends among the Dutch-American Reformed. I wish the CRC were not what it is, and that the RCA had retained its seventeenth-century confessionalism, like when its pastors in New Netherland petitioned the colony’s governor to keep out the Lutherans (sorry Lily and John) and the Quakers.

Instead, and unfortunately, the CRC and RCA are examples not of dead orthodoxy but of communions that lost touch with confessionalism. The cure for those students at Calvin and Hope is not revival. John Williamson Nevin’s own account of his encounter with revivalism at Union College should give anyone pause in recommending revival to children of the covenant. The cure for those students is a consistory that doesn’t admit children to full communion until they have made a credible profession of faith – that is, a consistory that looks past the blonde hair and Queen Wilhelmina mints and recognizes these as children of Abraham who need to own their baptism by professing faith in Christ and living a life of repentance.

Plus, does DeYoung really pretend to think that pietistic churches don’t have unconverted in their midst, even those who have walked the aisle? Even Edwards thought the revival hadn’t taken. That’s part of the reason he came out with David Brainerd’s life and journals in 1749. Edwards’ church needed another dose of revival. So revival doesn’t cure. Or if it does cure, how do we know? How do we know that the folks walking down front during the altar call – what hip technique has replaced the altar call – are genuine? Isn’t it possible to fake a conversion experience?

The question, then, is whether revival is the means that God has appointed to save his people. I look in the pastoral epistles, and I look, and I look, and I don’t see it. What I see is Paul telling Timothy to discharge his ministerial duties faithfully in good seasons and bad. The pastor’s work – unlike the itinerant evangelist’s – is long, routine and sometimes boring that doesn’t have the lights, camera, and action of pietism and revivalism. But it may be the way that God actually saves a people for himself. And he has a history of using ordinary means to accomplish invisibly extraordinary ends.

So while DeYoung thinks confessionalists need to keep an eye out for dead orthodoxy, why don’t pietists or their enablers spend much time worried about live frivolity? When it comes to dead or alive, I get it. I’ll take life, thank you (though Paul is sitting on my shoulder telling me it is gain to be with the Lord – while Homer is yelling from the other shoulder – Doh!). But when it comes to orthodoxy and frivolity, it’s also a no-brainer. In which case, why do pietists so identify with life that they sacrifice orthodoxy for triviality, depth for breadth, teaching for feeling, sobriety for earnestness?

Maybe the problem is the way pietists view being alive. I don’t know of too many people these days who are orthodox but don’t believe. I don’t even know of too many in the heyday of orthodoxy, when it had the imprimatur of the state, who were orthodox and dead. Orthodoxy has never been an appealing position – you know, abominate yourself because of sin, look solely to Christ who is now your master and deserves your loyalty and obedience, submit to the oversight of undershepherds God has appointed for your good. Those are not ideas readily advantageous to anyone.

DeYoung does, however, indicate what he means by life. And it sets up a contrast with the kind of piety that confessionalism nurtures (this is not confessionalism against piety but against pietism):

But I want a certain kind of confessionalism. I want a confessionalism that believes in Spirit-given revival, welcomes deep affections, affirms truth-driven experience, and understands that the best creeds should result in the best deeds. I want a confessionalism that believes in the institutional church and expects our Christian faith to impact what we do in the world and how we do it. I want a confessionalism that is not ashamed to speak of conversion—dramatic conversion for some, unnoticed conversion for many.

So while DeYoung wants revival, confessionalists want the weekly observance of the means of grace.

DeYoung wants deep affections but confessionalists want sobriety and self-control.

DeYoung wants truth-driven experience and confessionalists want children to grow up and understand what they have memorized in the catechism (the way that children eventually learn the grammar of the language they grow up speaking).

DeYoung wants the best creeds to result in the best deeds while confessionalists want believers to live out their vocations so that plumbers will plumb like every other plumber to the best of their ability.

DeYoung wants the belief in the institutional church but confessionalists ask what’s up with the Gospel Coalition?

DeYoung expects our Christian faith to impact what we do in the world and how we do it while confessionalists believe in the spirituality of the church.

And DeYoung wants dramatic conversion while confessionalists want lifelong mortification and vivification (that is, the original Protestant meaning of conversion).

In sum, confessionalists are content with the Shorter Catechism’s description of the Christian life when it answers the question, “What does God require of us that we may escape his wrath and curse due to us for sin?”

A. To escape the wrath and curse of God due to us for sin, God requires of us faith in Jesus Christ, repentance unto life, with the diligent use of all the outward means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemption.

That is not all that fancy or elaborate a way of putting the Christian life but it has enough work for even the best of Christians. To trust Jesus daily and believe God’s promise that Christ is for me and that God is not faking it in the gospel, to repent daily of sin, and to attend weekly to the means of grace and order my affairs so that my attention is focused on the day of rest – that is a pretty full plate. Why pietists want to pile on is a mystery. It seems down right glutinous.

(UPDATE: For those old enough to remember the Tonight Show when Johnny Carson was the host, and Doc Severinson was the band leader, Doc was not always present, often playing other gigs. Johnny regularly said to Ed McMahon, “Doc is here? Doc is not here.” In that same vein, Kevin’s post was not here. It is now here.)

Why it vanished from the Gospel Coalition website is a mystery. At the risk of shameless self-promotion, the reason may have to do with DeYoung’s decision to interact with The Lost Soul of American Protestantism, a book written by this blogger. Seemingly, any attention given to the Old Life case for confessionalism is improper at the Gospel Coalition because that case has uncomfortable implications for the gospel Allies.

And at the risk of seeing the Gospel Coalition administrators purge DeYoung’s thoughtful comments altogether from the Internet (they are currently available at his Facebook page), I am preserving his piece here below. Unlike the Gospel Coalition, where disagreements about polity, the sacraments, and even the eternal decrees, are not permitted to surface for the sake of fighting the Axis powers of inauthentic Christianity, I regard a blog as simply a place to discuss and kvetch. (I imagine that several days worth of Prozac and Prilosec comes with the registration packet at the Gospel Coalition conference to keep the conferees in good humor and free from indigestion.)

Here is DeYoung’s post (reaction to follow):

Can Pietism and Confessionalism Be Friends? (Part 1 of 3)

by Kevin DeYoung on Friday, April 8, 2011 at 12:27pm

Those outside Presbyterian circles may not be aware (and may not care), but there has been a lot of discussion over the past few years about the dangers of pietism and how it differs radically from the older (read: better) model of confessionalism. Pietism, it is said, emphasizes dramatic conversions, tends toward individualism, pushes for unity based on shared experience, and pays little attention to careful doctrinal formulation. Confessionalism, on the other hand, is a more churchly tradition, with creeds and catechisms and liturgy. It emphasizes the ordinary means of word and sacrament and prizes church order and the offices. It is pro-ritual, pro-clergy, and pro-doctrine, where pietism, it is said, stands against all these things.

I am sympathetic with much of this critique of evangelical pietism. I agree with Darryl Hart’s contention in The Lost Soul of American Protestantism that American evangelicalism has tried too hard to be relevant, has largely ignored organic church growth by catechesis, has too often elevated experience at the expense of doctrine, has minimized the role of the institutional church, and has worn out a good number of Christians by assuming that every churchgoer is an activist and crusader more than a pilgrim. Confessionalism would be good tonic for much of what ails the evangelical world.

Concern for Confessionalism

And yet, I worry that confessionalism without a strong infusion of the pietism it means to correct, can be a cure just as bad as the disease. Is there a way to reject revivalism without discounting genuine revival in the Great Awakening? Can I like Machen and Whitefield? Is there a way to say, “Yes, the church has tried too hard to Christianize every area of life” while still believing that our private faith should translate into public action? Hart argues that after revivalism Christian devotion was no longer limited to “formal church activities on Sunday or other holy days,” but “being a believer now became a full-time duty, with faith making demands in all areas of life” (13). Given the thrust of the book, I think it’s safe to say Hart finds this troubling.

Further, Hart clearly sides with the Old Side in New England that opposed the Great Awakening, its emphasis on inner experience, and the insistence that ministers be able to give an account of God’s work in their hearts (32-42). While I agree wholeheartedly that experience does not a Christian make, I wish the strong confessional advocates would do more to warn against the real danger of dead orthodoxy. It is possible to grow up in a Christian home, get baptized as an infant, get catechized, join the church, take the Lord’s Supper, be a part of a church your whole life and not be a Christian. It is possible to grow up in an Old World model where you inherit a church tradition (often along ethnic lines), and stay in that church tradition, but be spiritually dead. There are plenty of students at Hope College and Calvin College (just to name two schools from my tradition) who are thoroughly confessional as a matter of form, but not converted.

I have no hesitation in commending confessionalism. My concern is that pietism–with its private Bible study, small group prayer, insistence on conversion, and the cultivation of “heart” religion–is frequently set against confessionalism. For example, Hart agues, “Confessional Protestantism invites another way of evaluating the making of believers. Its history demonstrates the importance of inheritance and the way that believers appropriate faith over a lifetime through the sustained ministry and counsel of pastors as opposed to the momentary crisis induced by the itinerant evangelist or the pressures of sitting around a fire at summer camp” (184). I like the first sentence, but why so negatively caricature the work of itinerant evangelists and the real conversions that may come at summer camp? I could be misreading Hart. Maybe he has no problem with any of these things. But when he says, “the central struggle throughout Protestantism’s history has been between confessionalism and pietism, not evangelicalism and liberalism” (183), I worry that committed Presbyterians will steer clear of anything that gets painted with a broad brush as “pietism.”

A Confessionalism with Deep Piety

We all feel and respond to different dangers (for example, see Ligon Duncan’s post and William Evans’ post, both of which I like). No doubt, revivalistic, hyper-experiential, adoctrinal, deeds-not-creeds, tell-me-the-exact-moment-you-were-born-again, go-conquer-the-world-for-Christ Christianity has a load of problems. If that’s pietism, then I want no part of it.

But I want a certain kind of confessionalism. I want a confessionalism that believes in Spirit-given revival, welcomes deep affections, affirms truth-driven experience, and understands that the best creeds should result in the best deeds. I want a confessionalism that believes in the institutional church and expects our Christian faith to impact what we do in the world and how we do it. I want a confessionalism that is not ashamed to speak of conversion—dramatic conversion for some, unnoticed conversion for many.

I want a confessionalism that preaches and practices deep piety. Whether this is labeled “pietism” or just part of our rich confessional tradition doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that we have ministers and parishioners who realize there is an external and internal dimension to the faith. I want Christians to know that going to church, hearing the word, reciting the creeds, singing the hymns, and partaking of the sacraments is not peripheral to the Christian life; it our lifeblood. And I also want Christians who do all those things every week to pray in “their closets,” look for opportunities to share the gospel with the lost, submit to Christ’s lordship in every area of life, and understand that true faith is not only a knowledge and conviction that everything God reveals in his Word is true; it is also a deep-rooted assurance” that not only others, but they too “have been made forever right with God, and have been granted salvation” (Heidelberg Catechism Q/A 21).

Okay, I can’t resist one quick comment. Why does piety have to be “deep”? I understand that deep piety is good, and better than shallow piety. But what company makes the piety meter to detect whether it is deep or shallow? And what about those days when my piety is shallow? Am I less elect or justified? In other words, the word “deep” encourages an interest in me, not the gospel or God’s saving work.

This is not a reason to say, let’s have more shallow piety. But it may be a reason to be careful about the words we use lest we fall prey to the pride of thinking our own piety is deep. You’d think that folks who desire God and his glory might see how their piety standards nurture desires less theocentric and glorious.

To be sure, Christians can be cold and casual about matters of faith. After all, saints are still sinners and so prone to various spiritual afflictions that impede sanctification. But why do churches have to engage in extraordinary ways of displaying their commitment to Christ? Why do evangelistic rallies, intense meetings of small groups, suffusing water cooler banter with God-talk, numerous conversions, or visible displays of piety (such as listening to inferior Christian music) constitute a work of God? Why doesn’t the weekly worship by word and sacrament, or a regular meeting of session, presbytery, or General Assembly count as a work of God’s Spirit? Why can’t genuine Christian piety be ordinary?

In the case of the church, what is ordinary is actually extraordinary. If you start with the supposition that people are sinners and in rebellion against God, and then find a gathering of believers for a worship service, you may actually think that something remarkable has happened in the lives of these people. And if you consider that most Americans don’t know how to sing independently of singing along with the radio or Ipod, and then you see people on Sunday holding hymnals singing praise to God, you may actually be struck by how extraordinary congregational song is. And if you think about the history of the Christian church and recognize how prone she is to error and unfaithfulness, and then you find a communion that is orthodox in its teaching and sane in its worship, you may be tempted to think that you have experienced a taste of heaven.

And yet, revivalists and the believers who support them are never so impressed by the church in her ordinary ways. Such discontent may actually breed churches filled with malcontents. And yet, in one of the bigger ironies of church history, the revivalists are the ones considered to be the most devout and the most loving when in fact it is the opponents of revival who are actually marked by charity and patience, fruit of the Spirit last I checked, in their dealings with this entity we know as the church militant.