My confession of faith is not the Westminster Confession. It is the confession of my communion, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Of course, our confession bears many resemblances to the Westminster Confession. But if folks look at the publication of our confession, neatly produced by the Committee on Christian Education, it reads, the “Confession of Faith and Catechisms of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church with Proof Texts†(the proof texts are especially all the OPC’s). Again, the OPC did rely upon standards handed down from the Westminster Divines, adopted by the Scottish Kirk, and then in 1729 by the Synod of Philadelphia for the communion that was taking shape in the British colonies in North America. Still, when OPC officers subscribe our confession and catechisms, they are embracing documents that are different from those produced during the 1640s, and also with different understandings (because of the development of history) of several of the doctrines taught.
Many of the controversies in our current setting stem from originalists who insist that the contemporary church has abandoned the original sense of the Standards, and those who seek a different elaboration of Reformed theology. I myself find that I am on different sides of this debate, on the one hand wanting to find room for genuine theological developments within our communions, and on the other, realizing the folly and danger that usually attends adapting to the times.
Jason Stellman wants to break through the impasse and proposes the writing of a new confession. At his blog he writes:
Here’s where a new confession comes in. What is needed is the ability to avoid the task of divining the ever-elusive “system of doctrine,†the confession-within-the-confession, the bits and pieces of our doctrinal standards that really matter. But as long as we theoretically subscribe to the Westminster Confession and Catechisms but allow countless exceptions to be taken to them, we leave ourselves no choice but to scratch our heads over whether things like refraining from recreation on the Sabbath and 6/24 creation are intrinsic to the system. My proposal is simply that if we all agree that something is not intrinsic to the system, then why not omit it altogether? Then, once we have identified what our system of doctrine actually is, we can confess it strictly and with confidence. It is just this kind of approach—one that calls for strict subscription to the system of doctrine but allows laxity on incidental matters—that could potentially be the impetus for an ecumenical Reformed church consisting of believers from British Presbyterian and Continental Reformed backgrounds.
Maybe it comes from having studied with Scott Clark, but Stellman has a point. And though I can’t find it at Scott’s blog, he has for many years been maintaining that we need a new confession of faith, one that reflects both the tradition and the developments in theology since 1647. And while I can’t identify precisely the points of the argument, I think it runs something like this: if we continue to hold creeds and catechisms written in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they run the risk of functioning like dictionaries – reference works we simply pull off the shelf when an ordination exam comes along or when going to a trial, but seldom used in the day-to-day life of a congregation and its broader communion. Richard Muller has proposed a helpful remedy to this situation, one that makes our adopted creeds and confessions part of the warp and woof of church life (in corporate and family worship, and in member’s piety).
But another way to give us more ownership of our confessional standards is to write a new one.
The more I study the history of the Reformed churches, the more sense this proposal makes. The Westminster Assembly was an incredibly complicated affair, and the issues before that body are virtually unknown to contemporary readers (unless you’re Chad Van Dixhoorn). For instance, here is what Philip Benedict writes about the Divines:
The majority of the delegates who favored a presbyterial-synodal form of church government worked to bring the others around to their position by demonstrating the form’s biblical basis point by point.; but the exegesis proved a time-consuming, contentious business. As the divines puzzled over Scripture, the clash of arms realigned the political situation. The New Model Army proved more successful that the Scottish forces in the warfare against the king and did a better job of claiming credit for joint victories. As the army’s power increased, the Independents and Erastians within the assembly grew more assertive and forces the initiation of regular consultations with Parliament, which was less sympathetic to clerical independence. As in the cities of Germany and Switzerland in the first century of the Reformation, the issue of who controlled excommunication became a bone of contention. . . . The new form of church government for England finally decided upon in conjunction with Parliament and spelled out in measure of August 1645 and March 1646 approximated the presbyterial-synodal churches of Scotland, France, and the Netherlands . . . . But it contained major compromises with Erastian and congregationalist concerns . . . . These accommodations displeased the Scottish envoys, who castigated the new system as a “lame Erastian presbytery.â€(Benedict, pp. 400-401)
Aside from questions of church polity and ecclesiastical authority, England was also facing antinomianism and neo-nomianism churning out of sixteenth-century debates over predestination. Puritan practical divinity was also in the air, as were debates over prayer books and liturgical forms. The point is that the confession can be read as a historical document to see what was animating Reformed English and Scottish churchmen in the seventeenth century. In fact, it needs to be read this way if it is going to function as a reliable standard (has anyone heard of grammatical-historical exegesis?). And as a state-appointed committee, its documents can also be read like Obama’s recent health care provision – a statement that bears all the compromises that come with politics, which is the art of compromise.
But such historical investigation and political intrigue is a long way from embracing the Westminster Confession as our own confession of faith. For that reason, I do believe that Stellman and Clark are on to something. Maybe if the NAPARC churches ever adopted Bob Godfrey’s proposal for a federated denomination of Reformed churches, their first item of business would be to call an assembly to write a Reformed confession for the twenty-first century.
Old Life 
Whatever theoretical attractions the writing of a new confession might hold, the practical problems in the current environment seem insurmountable. New confessions seem to require one of two things: (1) An outside force such as a king or a parliment that is impossing the confession or against whom the Reformed need to unite in a common confession; or (2) A willingness to compromise. Neither of these conditions is in force today.
Here are two examples that lead me to doubt that adopting a new confession in the next 20 years is even remotely feasible:
First, one of the most disputed Confessional items in the OPC regards the nature of Sabbath observance. Should we simply remove Sabbath observance from the new confession because it is so disputed? If we run the same thought experiment on several other debated issues we will quickly see that a new confession is likely to produce multiple new denominations (surely there will be those who insist on holding to the “old” confession).
Second, if the PCA can’t deal with the question of women serving as Deacons (in my judgment they have not been able to) then how is the largest NAPARC denomination going to be able to deal with the vastly more complex issue of writing and adopting a new confession of faith?
Furthermore, we should not imagine that there are huge resevoirs of good will and confidence in the brethren throughout NAPARC. Many people who suggest changes to the confession will rapidly be accused of not holding to the faith that they have already vowed to teach.
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Scott makes the suggestion for a new confession in Recovering the Reformed Confession.
An interesting model for writing a new confession is how the Particular Baptists in London in 1677 used the Westminster Confession to draft a new Baptist confession of faith. Aside from new chapters that expound Baptist views on baptism and the Lord’s Supper, church polity and civil government, the drafters of the new Baptist confession altered a number of other chapters from the WCF to confess the same faith as in the WCF but to deal with new theological matters regarding Scripture, the person and work of Christ, among other things..
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Richard,
Part of the reason why the London Baptist Confession so closely follows the Westminster Confession is because the Baptists were trying to show that they weren’t that different from the Presbyterians and that they shouldn’t be persecuted (remember that Charles II had ascended to the throne in 1660 and had re-established the Church of England as an Anglican body).
Without that sort of external reason for uniting around a new confession, it is difficult to see how NAPARC could agree to slightly modifying our current confessions. It is plausible that minor additions could be made. It is difficult to see what people would be willing to eliminate.
David
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How about use the 1910 Doctrinal Deliverance. http://www.pcahistory.org/documents/deliverance.html. You just have to remove the references to the confession and catechisms, and you’re all set with your new confession. Oh, you will need to substitute #3 with Union in Christ instead, since that is the central doctrine – right?
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Uh, what’s wrong with a declaratory statement/preface that clarifies the intent and understanding of how the confession is to be understood rather than a full blown new confession?
Such a DS would specify that:
Psalms means or includes uninspired hymns, the days of creation are not necessarily of 24 hr length, women can serve as unordained deaconesses (ordained?), recreation is not a work to be rested from on the sabbath, the civil magistrate is not to enforce the first table of the law etc. etc.
Mind you, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with all the exceptions, but when ignorance seems to prevail – and that among the ministers, if not seminary professors – regarding the confessions as originally written, one is not in a postion to replace/supersede them. Maybe after Dixhoorn’s labor in the primary sources for the WS, but not until and even then, a declaratory statement ought to be sufficient.
After all, didn’t Machen think that the reformation creeds and confessions adequately charted the reformed faith though some more fine tuning is called for? Neither do I find the confessions irrelevant but rather again the orthodox are just as ignonorant of them, as those like the FV, which they oppose. While the reformation confessions stood on the shoulders of the ecumenical creeds, much more surpassed them in scope, I am hard pressed to believe that the present status quo entails a like quantum leap in theological understanding necessitating a “new” confession.
IOW as much as I hate to be a naysayer, that’s my 2 cents.
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Bob, wouldn’t your point also apply to the Westminster Divines? They had the Belgic and the Second Helvitic and the Gallican at their disposal, for starters. So why write a new one? And if they felt compelled to write a new one, why shouldn’t we? After all, we are not living in a state church environment where the state is calling the shots for what is permissible in the church. Nor are we having to fight off Quakers and other antinomians, or Arminians.
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Dr. Hart,
Isn’t a large part of why the Westminster Divines could write a new confession with the hope of it being adopted was that the Westminster Assembly was a committee of Parliment?
David
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I personally like the proposal of a significantly amended confession because, at least in American Presbyterianism, we seem to have this odd practice of having the GA’s compose and publish non-binding recommendations to the church. Then these documents can become extra confessional documents in some ways (I am thinking of recent Justification reports for instance). Why not make some significant additions and/or subtractions to our confessions and strictly subscribe what we believe God’s Word teaches in our day in light of hundreds of years of development? Maybe then at least the OPC and PCA can walk down the aisle. What an eco-system that would be!
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David, yes, the divines were appointed by Parliament. So what if NAPARC apppointed a committee? I guess I’m not sure why parliamentary strings are better for writing a new confession.
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Dr. Hart,
I know Dr. Clark wrote about the need of the confessing churches to write and update their confessions that both affirms Our Theology, Piety, and Practice and the developments in theology since 1647 in his book “Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice”
http://www.wscal.edu/bookstore/store/details.php?id=2043&utm_source=rsclark&utm_medium=rsclark&utm_campaign=wscbooks
Dr. Clark has also fleshed out this point in several lectures just prior and after the book’s release and I think he did an interview about the book where he spoke about this too, maybe on Christ the Christ or on Covenant Radio. I’ll search my mp3 library and see if I can find it. Too bad, Dr. Clark has decided to take a break from the On-line world currently or we could just ask him.
What kind of qualifications do you think committee members should have?
God Bless
Joe
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Dr. Hart:
Parlimentary strings are not better for writing a new confession. They are better for ensuring the likelihood that the new confession gets adopted (of course the WCF wasn’t adopted in England – but that is a different story).
In my judgment, even if NAPARC were to appoint a committee to create a new confession there is virtually no possibility of it being adopted by the OPC. If it were adopted by both the OPC and PCA we can be sure that it would split those denominations between those who want to adopt the new confession and those who think that that the new confession is a compromise document because it left out issues they thought were particularly important. Indeed, it is not difficult to envision multiple new micro-denominations which require 6 day creationism, the affirmation or banning of Theonomy, etc …
I heartily agree with the goal Jason Stellman is advocating with the phrase: Saying Less More Loudly. Moreover, I am more than willing to embrace such a project if my pessimism is ill-founded. So here is my suggestion: You, Jason, and Dr. Clark can each publish a list of those items in your current confessions that you are willing to cut out of the new confession. Let’s see how your well informed readers respond to these three lists.
David
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Joe and David, the committee should not include elders. Any old pastors should do (seriously).
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Dr. Hart,
Before the possibility of writing a new confession, don’t you think the NAPARC would have weed out all the churches, churchmen & perhaps denominations that don’t have high view or strict subscription are our current confessions of faith?
God Bless
Joe
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Joe, that wasn’t a prerequisite for Westminster. It’s not clear that the churches had a tight view on subscription.
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Dr. Hart,
By old pastors do you mean retired pastors no longer holding office?
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“Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” Jude 3, 4 (KJV)
Hart says theology has changed. No. There’s nothing new under the sun. God has not changed His Word. He also hasn’t changed Himself in any way since the 1640s. Our unwillingness to hold to certain parts of the confession does not disprove them.
If you do end up drafting a new confession that just leaves out the parts you don’t feel like following, then will you have a rejection of those parts as “errors?” Will there be a part in there that says, for example, “We reject the error of Sabbatarianism, which says not to indulge in any entertainment on the Lord’s Day?” Will you provide Scripture proofs to back that up?
It is written in Jude that “the faith” was “delivered unto the saints” only ONCE. If you leave out parts of the Westminster Standards, then the onus is on you to demonstrate, FROM SCRIPTURE, why those particular parts have been rejected. After all, a confession is used as a means of justifying church discipline on a member who commits an offense. So there is a serious potential for abusing brethren by kicking them out of churches if they say we should be Sabbatarians and the “new confession” doesn’t say that. They could be brought up on charges of “binding someone’s conscience” on things that are “neither here nor there.” Simply because they said it’s in the Bible, but someone else says it’s not in the “new confession.” That’s a great way to eliminate from the church anyone who’s irritating someone else by going around saying something is in the Bible, so they should do it. This is very serious.
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Jenny, I didn’t say that theology changes. I said that the context for creeds change. Can you explain why the Belgic confession is different from WCF, which is different from the Second Helvetic Confession? And what would have happened if the presbyters in the British North American colonies had adopted the Gallican confession instead of WCF?
All of those creeds emerged from specific historical contexts, and were invariably addressed to different rulers — emperor, city council, or parliament. Since we no longer live in a magisterial reformation environment, and since we are some distance from the Arminian controversy, and since union is not very prominent in any of the creeds — ahem, why not write a new one that pertains to our context?
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Great write up, bookmarked the blog with interest to see more information!
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“. . . one that reflects both the tradition and the developments in theology since 1647”
This is where you say that theology has changed. You used the word “development,” and a development, according to my dictionary, is “an event constituting a new stage in a changing situation.” What do you or other theologians living today know now that the Apostles did not know? That the Westminster “divines” did not know?
Also, why use the word “tradition” in that sentence? Certainly you would not want us to cling to the traditions of men, but rather the doctrines and commandments of God, right?
“We are some distance from the Arminian controversy,” you say.
No, we are not. It is all over the place in our churches. The moment we say it is not, then we are at greatest risk of being overrun with it. Just as Jude 4 tells us, there ARE (not used to be, back in those olden days, “ARE”) certain men crept in unawares into your church and everyone else’s church, and into my church. As long as men use “the grace of our God into lasciviousness,” (Jude 4), we will not be some distance from the Arminian controversy. It need not be openly preached in the Sunday morning sermon in order for Arminianism to be appearing in our midst.
The WCF and Three Forms of Unity are only useful to the extent that they correctly expound on Holy Scripture, which is “living and active.” Whether or not we live in a “magisterial reformation environment” has nothing to do with it. And the confessions made no issue of any “magisterial reformation environment” as a test of their credibility. Holy Scripture is the real question here. Holy Scripture is the only test of their credibility. Not the changing times, places, culture, winds of doctrine, or anyone or anything else. The doctrines of the faith (TULIP, 5 Solas, etc) need to be contended for in every age because God’s Word is just as true in all ages as it was in the “cultural context” in which it or any of the confessions arose. Just because they’re old, doesn’t mean they’re outdated or irrelevant to us in our time and place. If they are, you’ll need to disprove their statements from Holy Scripture before I’ll believe that.
Also, I had to make a solemn VOW before the consistory and the congregation that I believe in the Three Forms of Unity, in order to be admitted for church membership. I told the truth when I stated that vow. If you want “ownership,” that’s ownership.
So again, I’d like to know, would you include a “rejection of errors” from the old confessions in the writing of the “new confession?” If so, then what?
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Jenny, until you can grasp the difference between the Consensus Tigurinus, the Gallican Confession, the Belgic, and Westminster, I don’t think you are going to understand the point. But if you looked at those confessions, you would see different arrangements and diverse statements of similar truths. That’s all I am calling for. I do believe in a body of truth called the Reformed faith. I also know that this truth emerged from specific historical circumstances. Since our circumstances are different from the 16th and 17th centuries — and the American and Dutch churches have had to revise their teachings on the civil magistrate — then why not write a new confession? This need not be a liberal development. It could actually be very conservative.
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Why not? Because it’s already been done, as you say.
Why should we? You still haven’t stated what’s wrong with what we’ve already got? All it’ll do is distract from the good ones we already have.
Besides–if they have “different arrangements and diverse statements of similar truths,” isn’t that all the more a show of unity in the true faith of Christ? What more do you need?
How are our circumstances different from the 16th and 17th centuries in any way that affects our interpretation of Romans 13? They’re not. Back then, the civil magistrate may have been in a different form of government, but they show their Total Depravity now in much the same ways that they did then. I personally find the WCF and 3FU very informative to today’s political and cultural climate. Don’t you?
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Jenny, again by your logic, then there was no reason to write the WCF. The Gallican and Scottish confessions already existed. If we wrote a new confession is would be doing exactly what the Westminster Divines did — write a new confession. And why did they? Because they needed to explain and define the Reformed faith in 1640s England.
And this is the problem with not revising, you attribute superman-like powers to a group of gifted but fallible men.
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I get your last point, but what Scriptural teachings do you feel are lacking in WCF? I still haven’t heard you say.
I get your point that the men who put together the WCF were simply fallible men who did a good thing . . . I agree they’re not superhuman.
But what did they leave out? I have an opinion on that–for example, there was little to nothing on eschatology, except for the remark that the Pope is the Antichrist. But I’m wondering what your opinion is.
What would you change, subtract, or add?
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