Over at Mere Orthodoxy a couple of posts have tried to identify two wings of the Young, Restless, and Reformed “movement” by applying the labels Old School and New School. Since many members of the PCA and OPC would even be unaware of this nineteenth-century division among American Presbyterians and what it meant, I was naturally intrigued by the diagnosis. I am also unpersuaded.
Both posts start from the premise that in an age of Facebook and blogging, social institutions and structures have become radically voluntary. I am not sure if this is true, especially when it comes to Christianity in the United States. Ever since the Constitution and ecclesiastical disestablishment, faith in America has been voluntary. Granted, the suppliers of religious services have expanded considerably and the golden age of Protestant denominationalism is no more. But even during the first half of the twentieth century, conservative Protestants were awash in a cornucopia of religious institutions, from Bible schools (as graduates of BIOLA should know, rights?) and faith missions, to independent congregations and celebrity revivalists.
Then comes the application of Old and New School categories by Kevin White to the Young, Restless, and Reformed:
The “Parachurch” or “New School” prefer more informal church networks and more emphasize the big conferences as the anchor points for the movement. They are more likely to identify as missional and to be part of independent churches or newer church connections. (e.g., Sovereign Grace Ministries, Acts 29, Mohlerite Southern Baptists) The parts of Reformed Theology that they emphasize are sovereignty and the doctrines of grace. You might call them the “Evangelical Reformed.”
The “Church” or “Old School” have a stronger emphasis on confessionalism and formal church polity. They more emphasize the visible church as a covenant community. The conventions are more of a supplementary fellowship opportunity. Like the 19th century Old School Presbyterians, they think revivalist, pietistic evangelicalism is a good thing, that can go hand-in-hand with the best of Protestant scholastic theology. They are more likely to emphasize Reformed ecclesiology as the context for the doctrines of grace and election. You might call them “Reformed Evangelicals.”
I sure would have thought that Acts 29 or Sovereign Grace were about as churched as the Young, Restless, and Reformed get. Those are communions of some kind. Together for the Gospel or The Gospel Coalition would appear more New School than Old School compared to the networks of congregations headed by Driscoll or Mahaney. In other words, I’m puzzled by this notion that an Old School element exists among the Young, Restless, and Reformed. Neither post mentions any examples of such an Old School contingent, a figure, or set of churches. I even wonder if the authors know about the communions that comprise the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Churches.
Mind you, the hope for a well grounded account of the church to counteract voluntarism is a welcome sign. White writes, for instance:
Once entered, membership and fellowship become a holy obligation and a familial bond, not to be broken lightly. The visible fellowship of the church is made (ideally) a living critique of unstable, self-defined voluntary culture.
Matthew Lee Anderson adds:
. . . voluntary associations of an arbitrary sort simply do not provide the stability and depth that we need for human flourishing. For that, we must look elsewhere, to God Himself, which is the first movement of the church and the fountainhead of virtue.
But when Anderson talks about the dangers of localism as a kind of nostalgia, I am not sure he understands the nature of the church. He says:
It would be easy to dismiss voluntarity and pine for a return of immobility and a small patch of land with a picket fence. But the promise of localism needs to be tempered by the perils as well. The soil is just as fallen as the pavement, and electing to reject the easy, voluntary associations of our late modern world for the involuntary ones of the local community may offer just as false a hope as the social networks did.
Well, actually, when it comes to food production, a patch of land is much better than pavement, superior in every respect. And spiritual food is best produced locally rather than corporately. It is easy to sound elitist when promoting the values of slow food over McDonald’s, and the work of a pastor is much closer to that of a slow food chef than a teenager flipping burgers at the local store of an international company. But closer to the truth is the similarity between a local pastor’s work and a mother’s. These officers prepare food (whether spiritual or physical) with a sense of what is good for the eaters. They use good ingredients and do so with a sense of what the sheep or children need nutritionally.
In which case, when Jesus told Peter to feed his sheep, our lord likely did not have in mind Peter going to the spiritual equivalent of McDonald’s to purchase burgers for the flock. Care, discernment, and preparation were as important to the feeding as the actual cooking. That leaves the megaconferences like TGC or T4G or even the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology much more in the position of providing fast food than a home cooked meal since the cooks are not dining with the eaters, or spending time in between meals to see how the digestion is going or if the diet needs to be modified.
I an very glad to know that some Young, Restless, and Reformed are aware of Old School Presbyterianism. But I’d sure like to know which cooks they have in mind and what authorities are overseeing the kitchens.
Old Life 
This line from the Kevin White quotes puzzles me:
Did the the 19th century Old School Presbyterians think revivalist, pietistic evangelicalism is a good thing, that can go hand-in-hand with the best of Protestant scholastic theology? I kid of thought they did not but maybe I don’t know enough about the differences between 19th century Old Schoolers and earlier Old Schoolers.
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As an old school YRRer ( I will call myself) my favourite cooks are:
1. Bernard Westerveld
2. Craig Troxel
3. Mark dever
4. Ligon Duncan
5. R Scott Clark
6. Sinclair fergie
7. Curt Daniel
8. Iain Murray
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2 Peter 2:17-18 often comes to mind in these discussions.
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I’m just an adult convert. I did become a member of the OPC in college, and I’m still in my 20s, but it would be unbecoming of an OSP to self-identify as a YRR. It feels strange to self-identify as anything other than presbyterian or christian, really.
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Joel as got some cooks whose dishes
will not compliment one another.
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Excuse me – Joe not Joel. And Clark surely does not prepare dishes compatible with at least some of the other chefs.
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@Joe
Dr. R Scott Clark would not want to be on your list. Dr. Clark was a very outspoken critic of YYR movement, and say most of the folks involved weren’t even Reformed, just hijackers of our terms and language.
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People who have been in the military say that they made friendships there that they just couldn’t have achieved elsewhere. They are never that close to anyone else ever again, except perhaps with their spouse.
There is, of course, one reason for this. When you’re in the military, you’re stuck with the people around you, often in very close, very uncomfortable quarters, and there’s no escaping them. That’s why you get so close, because you can’t get away.
Seems like the folks at Mere Orthodoxy think that being stuck with other people is a horrible, suffocating thing. Perhaps it is. But this is how relationships are built. Marriage works the same way. You get close to the person because walking away from the marriage just isn’t an option. If divorce is always a viable option, chances are it’s an option you’ll take because you’ll never grow as close to one another. When you’re stuck with someone, and they’re stuck with you, there’s no reason to try to hide who you are anymore, because they CAN’T leave – or at least, they’ve promised not to.
And that’s why we can confess our sins to Christ, because he has promised, “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.”
So this is why it’s also best to have community churches, in which people live close to the church, rather than everyone driving from an hour or more away in various directions. It’s about being committed to your local church, vowing to submit to one another in love. This is what the church is supposed to be.
The idea of blogs or Facebook replacing that is absolute and utter nonsense, and can only be embraced by people who have never been in a close, committed relationship, and so cannot see the value in such a thing. Perhaps they didn’t have siblings.
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Mark, the Old School was inherently and theoretically pro-revival since many of them had converted during some kind of New Divinity-style revival (and the PCUSA was pro-revival after the Union of 1758). But they didn’t see too many revivals during the Second Pretty Good Awakening to approve. Plus, their churchly piety ran up against the experiential side of pietism. For some reason, they did not notice the tension.
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I would identify myself as similar to Joe above. I’m an SBC pastor and yet in addition to Dever and the 9 Marks crew, I can’t help but enjoy the teachings of Old Life, Modern Reformation, White Horse Inn, and guys like D. Hart, M. Horton. RS Clark, D. VanDrunen, even though they wouldn’t want to be on my list. I feel more comfortable with the teachings of those guys than the YRR, and yet the Old School folks won’t have me 🙂
‘Splain that one (besides just saying I’m confused).
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Then again, maybe that’s because I use emoticons sometimes (sorry Carl Trueman).
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I think In N Out Burger is much more confessional reformed cooking than this post suggests. I’m a tad hurt Dr. Hart.
*waits*
I’m over it now.
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Honestly, I’m not sure that it takes much theological reasoning to see the weaknesses in these arguments. A lot of people have been saying that the internet and “radical voluntarism” are going to Completely Change Everything, from politics, to the family, to the way art is produced and appreciated.
Thus far they’ve been wrong. And not just a little wrong. Massively, dramatically, spectacularly wrong.
Turns out that there’s something irreducible and irreplaceable about physical community, particularly of the involuntary sort. Online fora can create something like a community, but it remains no more than a simulacra. At best, this becomes an extra “channel” of communication for a pre-existing community. But time and again, those who have expected community to form in the absence of any underlying physical connection have been disappointed.
Examples are pretty easy to come up with. The Netroots gang has largely failed to generate a groundswell of progressive politics even remotely proportional to their media presence. Pretty much every company that has used the internet as a primary means of generating revenue rather than a backend tool for traditional business imploded in the 1999-2000 bust. Just this week, News Corp just took a $545 million bath on MySpace. The criticism that Facebook fails to generate authentic friendships has gone from fresh insight to well-worn hobby horse.
Theology may serve to explain the mechanism for why this is the case in the particular context of the church, but with all due respect for theology’s position as queen of the scientiae, we don’t even need it here. Mere history, anthropology and sociology have this one pretty well covered. Given that YRR-types don’t seem terribly inclined to listen to ecclesiological arguments, drawing in those secular disciplines with which they seem so enamored might have merit. I mean hell, if freaking Rupert Murdoch can’t make this kind of thing work, why in heaven’s name do the YRR types think they can?
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I am in agreement with the good Doctor as he outlines the issues. Building good churches is more like being a small farmer than being like a McDonald’s manager. The OPC is more like an organic farm offering sale of exotic produce. Healthy, yes. Delicious, yes. But your neighbors are not interested and think you might be the fruit.
You cannot pick up the produce at your local grocery store. You have to get out to the farm or drive your gas guzzler to a far away farmer’s market. You will share a great deal of sentiment with those you meet, but little in the way of real community connection.
The RPCNA was once a generationally interconnected denomination of small rural congregations. They were organic in an authentic way. Now they are rocking the suburbs and the faithful are driving up to an hour or more to worship God purely. When gas is $5.00 per gallon + this becomes unsustainable. When I was a Pastor, we looked to this kind of future and wondered if we would have to go back to house churches and circuit ridding. This might offer more hope than our present situation.
So here is the problem. How do you make slow food churches something more than a yuppie cliche or ecclesiastical boutique and re-root them back into an intergenerational, geographically specific context? This may be a far more important question than figuring out how we can get 20 more baptists to become Psalm singers or how we can plant 20 more rootless churches preaching to cultural vagabonds.
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Excellent Post Bill.
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Jim U., baptize your kids and you’re in.
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John K., it was my attempt to be fair. Some fast food I like. In n Out is one. How could I not like In n Out since Walter, Donny, and the Dude all dine there?
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Bill, good to hear from you. You make slow food churches sustainable by only including home-schooling families. I jest somewhat. But it is the people who are earnest about rearing their children who are also earnest about passing on the faith, and they tend not to care about how they look while doing it. My impression is that in the OPC this spooks the SUV driving and latte sipping soccer moms.
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How do you make slow food churches something more than a yuppie cliche or ecclesiastical boutique and re-root them back into an intergenerational, geographically specific context?
This is really just a new development in an older problem, specifically that the church doesn’t actually seem to have figured out how to deal with the Industrial Revolution. More particularly, the church, of any tradition, hasn’t really figured out how to deal with the demographic shifts that go along with urbanization and population growth.
The parish model, which is the reality behind the “slow food” metaphor being discussed here, worked pretty well when populations were mostly rural and there was really only one option for going to church in any given area. But when the factories went up and people left the farms and moved to what had suddenly become cities, the church didn’t adapt very well. In some early-modern cities, for a while there there actually weren’t enough pews for everyone in a city to go to church on any given Sunday, while there were rural churches which had excess “capacity.” This problem hasn’t gone away in the past few centuries. If anything, it’s worse, because there are so many people around that capping congregations at a few hundred would mean increasing the number of congregations immensely. In many places, particularly in urban areas, this creates almost insurmountable logistical problems, as the amount of available land has not increased with the number of people filling it.
Really though, it isn’t just the church that’s struggling with how to deal with this new, urban reality. Inter-generational? There isn’t really anything that’s inter-generational anymore, even most families. We’re too mobile. But simply not being mobile anymore isn’t really an option either, any more than selling one’s car will suddenly eliminate the need for one.
So here’s the thing. I strongly agree with criticisms of YRR and emergent types as ignoring theological truths. I’d even go so far as to say that a lot of them are caught up in the same idolatry as the secular world: radical individualism, misplaced faith in electronic communication, you name it. Fundamentally, they seek to replicate the symptoms of organic growth without actually letting things grow organically. But at the same time, I’m increasingly convinced that organic growth today may produce “harvests” that don’t necessarily look a lot like what they did in the past. Insisting on a “geographically specific context” isn’t practical, to be sure, but I’m not seeing any reason why it’s essential either.
I think we need more inter-denominational but especially inter-congregational fellowship. In other words, I think it’s time we started acting like we believed in “one holy, catholic, and apostolic church.” People are going to move around. They just are. But if our congregations were better connected and we maintained better fraternal relations–even if only with our confessional allies!–mobility could be less disruptive. Even today, Catholics can transition between parishes with a minimum of fuss, and fellowship on the diocesian level is a regular part of their communal life. But the same is distinctly not the case in most Protestant denominations. A lot of PCA and even OPC members don’t even know the name of their Presbytery, let alone what other congregations belong to it. Hell, in the PCA things are to the point that most congregants don’t even know what other churches there are in the same city.
The YRR types have it wrong in thinking that they can make up this kind of connection from whole cloth. They can’t, any more than “friending” someone on Facebook results in any kind of meaningful connection between two people. But the problem isn’t that they’re looking for something they shouldn’t, but that they’re ignoring the institutional and ecclesiastical framework which already exists for that kind of thing. It’s there. Still, it’s kind of hard to blame them for looking turning away from existing structures when so little is being done with them.
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All fair enough, Ryan, but at the same time (how many “same times” can there be at one time?) it could be that some level of disconnect simply comes with the territory in the militant, which is to say imperfect and proximate age, no? Maybe imploring people to endure imperfection is a better way to address it than looking to the sort of unity afforded by Rome (which is a unity that comes at a steep price and a huge downside, BTW) or giving much sympathy to religious Facebookery.
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Zrim, we’d need to go way, way farther down the road to ecumenism before we even start to see the downsides Rome has experienced. All I’m asking is that we make better use of the intra- and inter-denominational structures that we already like.
Further, simply suggesting that my solution has risks is no real objection. I’d argue my solution also runs the risk of having more people at church, a risk which, while admittedly not an end in itself, doesn’t seem to apply to a lot of what goes on around here.
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Darryl, boo, hiss.
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Zrim, for what?
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So, Ryan, then maybe pastors and elders need to do more with the existing churches and their structures and leave Christian radio and Christian conferences (and their sponsors) behind.
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If only there was some way to effectively combine confessionalism and dudism, A29 would be obsolete over night. Darryl, I think you should work on this.
@Ryan. I also tend to be of the opinion that substantive reformed ecumism is very needed today. That is one of the reason I am so pleased to see the URC and OPC start working together, and to the best of my knowledge a joint Psalter Hymnal was just approved? If this is indeed the case, and if it really happens, I think it will be exciting to see those churches start to work alongside each other. It would be great to see the NAPARC churches start to work together, but yeah. Thats still much more a dream than a reality I think. (One to keep dreaming though.)
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Ryan, my point about Rome was just that there seems to be a difference between Catholicity and catholicity; the former is a function of immanentizing the eschaton. And I’m not saying your suggestion – which seems to be “do better” – has risks per se, so much as I’m saying such suggestions, good as far as they go, might do well to remember that we can only do so well in this age. So when I see the YRR/emergents reaching for, say Facebook, because they see imperfections in ecclesiastical models. I am less inclined to say I can’t blame them and more inclined to wonder if the premise is an over-realizing of catholicity and connection.
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Darryl, for the suggestion that home-schoolers have a leg up in earnestness in raising their kids and passing on the faith. But I know you tempered with jest.
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John, I do. The problem is that I believe in Christian liberty. Being the Dude is more a vocation than a part of sanctification.
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Zrim, I wondered if the censors of experimental Calvinism would question my word choice. But in this case, earnestness that is directed toward serving others rather than toward making me look holy is a good thing.
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So when I see the YRR/emergents reaching for, say Facebook, because they see imperfections in ecclesiastical models. I am less inclined to say I can’t blame them and more inclined to wonder if the premise is an over-realizing of catholicity and connection.
This is what happens when the sheep don’t have shepherds and when the shepherds themselves frequently amount to little more than trumped up sheep.
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Dr Hart said: I’m puzzled by this notion that an Old School element exists among the Young, Restless, and Reformed. Neither post mentions any examples of such an Old School contingent, a figure, or set of churches.
I would actually bet that the Mere Orthodoxy folks would cite you as an example, Dr. Hart. Michael Horton and Kevin DeYoung are two other guys that spring to mind.
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Ryan,
Ever heard of http://redchurches.com/?
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K, but I’m not young, nor am I restless. Plus, I am in a communion that tries to be disciplined.
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Darryl, I would suggest a small group, at a bowling alley, talking about how various Keller/Piper/Driscoll sermons make us feel. However, if I was serious I think my account might be banned. Catechism class at a bowling alley maybe? 🙂
RED Churches is a marvelous concept. I’m glad to have gotten involved. I’d love to see it gain some momentum and actually start to take off.
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John, my proposal would be to put Carson, Keller and Piper on a bowling team with Jesus (the one in the pink bowling suit).
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Jason & John
RED churches is a nice concept, with Evangelical wing of the PCA being as large as it is, being a member of a NAPARC maybe too broad.
Ex. from RED site 2) Joint services: Many Reformed churches have a tradition of holding joint services with other NAPARC churches, often the fifth Sunday of a month. REDS work to make it happen in their city.
That would never work here in Dallas, PCA churches here are very Evangelical and use Keller and Redeemer as their model. PCA churches here would have more in common with SBC churches in their worship services than my OPC church. Our worship service would be quite foreign to them.
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Darryl, that would be quite the sight!
Joe, I go to a more Evangelical type PCA church, where I am a Deacon. I have tried to persuade cooperation which I have only succeeded by grabbing the bull by the horns, for a special donated offering to OPC churches in Japan, once. I have noticed a natural reluctance to get behind RED a a result. They’re much more inclined to get behind A29 than RED, from the few PCAs I have been around. I tend to agree that many PCA churches will be disassociated, lets say, but I think that’s primarily by their own doing. Especially when you get into Doctrinal Intregrity by Samuel Miller, it is the heart of confessionalism, and that is naturally at odds with evangelicalism which emphasized results over substance. So naturally, I think RED will probably move in a different direction than many, if not most, PCAers.
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You might find the following blogs of interest about C.J. Mahaney and the group he leads, Sovereign Grace Ministries:
http://www.sgmsurvivors.com
http://www.sgmrefuge.com
They tell another side. Hope this helps.
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Dr. Hart,
I think I’d rather be on John Goodman’s bowling team, cause he’s packing heat. Just as long as I’m not one the telling him that they scheduled us for league play on the Shabbat.
Love that movie, it’s always a stop down for me when it’s on TV.
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SHOMER SHABBOS!
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I’m a little squeamish about this whole RED churches movement because I’m committed to being a presbyterian.
Joining RED means you’re committing to doing ecumenicity at the local level by sharing pulpits, having joint services, etc.
This seems to be an expression of impatience with the ecumenical processes being worked out in our presbyteries, classes, synods and General Assemblies. That makes me uncomfortable. It seems to indicate a willingness to act independently of what the presbytery or denomination is doing.
Besides, if I were a pastor and signed such a thing, aren’t I committing my entire church to do something? Does a pastor have that authority? No. Only a session has that authority. It seems to me that joining this RED movement is a claim to more authority than any single person ought to have in the church.
Furthermore, a call to be the pastor of a congregation is precisely the opposite of a commitment to share the pulpit. An ordination is a call to preach in that specific church. They’ve called you to be the guy in their pulpit. This is not a commitment to share the pulpit with ministers even in your own denomination. Rather, it’s a commitment to be the one and only guy who preaches to these people, except when sick or on vacation. To COMMIT to sharing your pulpit seems to me to be at odds with what an ordination even is. If one pastor in the pulpit is as good as another, why did this congregation call this pastor and not that one? Why is it such a long and careful process? Does a pastor or even a session have the right to impose whatever preacher they want on their flock? Do they have the right to impose a preacher on them that HASN’T been vetted by their presbytery? No, I think not.
I’m also concerned about minimizing the differences between denominations. They’re separate for what we all agree are good reasons.
For example, people in the OPC and URC love to talk about how similar our denominations are and how sad it is that we’re separate. But the fact is, the URC has some practices that most of us in the OPC could never go along with in good conscience, such as confession subscription for all members or their allergy to denominational authority. These are show stoppers, not to mention our different confessions of faith, similar though they might be. People in the OPC might lament our separation, but the fact is, we are separate for reasons we all know are important.
Or let me examine the question from the URC side: why didn’t the churches that separated from the CRC just become OPC churches? They chose to form their own denomination because, for whatever reason, they couldn’t join us in good conscience. So the fact is, ecclesiastical union will probably never happen, so why should we try to force the issue?
To say that the separation simply should not be is to say that the differences which both denominations have said (by way of vote at the highest ecclesiastical level) are important is to swim against the current of our respective denominations. If my General Assembly says no, who am I to say yes? It’s rebellious in my opinion.
Don’t get me wrong. If my denomination says that justification is by faith AND WORKS, I’ll be the first to rebel. There is such a thing as appropriate rebellion. But it doesn’t seem to me that this is it.
I’d like to see more discussion on this from others who are uncomfortable with it. And I’d like to see some discussion from those who are in favor of it that amounts to something more substantial than a breathless call for unity.
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Just a few things as I am unwilling to speak on behalf of RED, not to mention I am young and feel out of my element a tad bit. Anyway, these are my two cents.
I guess I can understand the reluctance behind a reservation to pulpit exchange and joint services, (more with the former than the latter). But I don’t believe any pastor of any church involved with make a unilateral decision without the affirmation from the session first. I don’t think RED would desire that, and I think there would be real cause to object if that were the case.
Through NAPARC there should be a level of trust since there are fraternal relations between each of the churches I think, as each denomination chose to be affiliated in NAPARC, that there should be a willingness of the local churches to start to work together towards greater unity (as is the point of NAPARC yes?). It seems that when the churches on a local level get used to each other, it will be easier for the denominations’ Presbyteries and General Assemblies to actually start working toward doing missions or education as that is the fourth item in the Purpose and Function of NAPARC.
To my knowledge, the OPC and URC are getting more comfortable with each other, as you pointed out, and if the joint psalter hymnal actually gets made, I think that will do a great deal of good for the assistance and cooperation of each church. Agreeing on something like corporate worship is a big step in the right direction I think.
I also think, as NAPARC is the back bone of all fraternal fellowship in RED, the ecumenicism will be a much more substantial unity that your garden variety evangelical. The Westminster Standards and the Three Forms of Unity don’t have to be at odds, and they have a very powerful witness when held alongside each other.
Hope that made sense.
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Since Darryl accused me of having Walter tendencies at times I have to pipe in on this one. Perhaps a start may be to resurrect the Dude bowling award for frequenters at old life. That may be a tool for more cross confessional dialog and strenghtening the organic confessional body. Plus a few enemies who are out to get us might help-like they were out to get the Dude who didn’t seem to give a rip about it all anyway. He was just minding his own business. It was Walter who wanted to try to take advantage of the absurd situation and made it even more absurd. Isn’t that what church life is like sometimes? We are often forced to sort through the ridiculous and absurd to get to the reality.
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John Knox,
Loved the picture of John Goodman cocking his gun- Shomer Shabbos
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“Plus a few enemies who are out to get us might help-like they were out to get the Dude who didn’t seem to give a rip about it all anyway.”
John Y. – Who would be the Nihilists? Gospel Coalition/evangelical/celebrity pastor fanboys?
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John Knox,
The Gospel Coalition/evangelical/clebrity pastor fanboys is good-but you would have to throw in the reformed philosophical logicians and charismatic leaning types who do not like the supposed rigidity of limiting the means of grace to Word and Sacrament.
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And don’t forget the cultural warriors who are out to gain every square inch of the culture for Christ.
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John, next time I sponsor the Lebowski Cup — in which the nihilists bowl against the caucasians — you’re the first on the invitation list. It’s hard to hold the event without an In n Out restaurant on hand.
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I wouldn’t miss it for anything!!!
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@ John Knox. Thanks for entering the discussion.
This is from the RED website: “RED Members (REDS) commit to sharing their pulpits with pastors of other NAPARC churches.”
I don’t have a problem with a URC pastor filling pulpit in an OPC church for example. It happens all the time. What I have a problem with is this requirement to “commit to sharing their pulpits”. I object to the words “commit” and “their”. Ostensibly, they’re seeking to recruit pastors to join this movement. The question is, whose pulpit is it? Does the pulpit belong to the minister, so that he may share it with whomever he pleases? We all know that isn’t the case. He didn’t call himself to the ministry. It’s the Lord’s pulpit, and he is the one who called that minister to preach from it.
Of course I understand that they’re not trying to do anything apart from the approval of sessions. But I still object to the idea of committing. Even if it only means “committing to try to convince my session to do this” (though that’s not what it says), I still have a problem with it.
A minister doesn’t commit to sharing his pulpit with anyone. He is not committed to sharing his pulpit even with people in his own denomination. There are obviously certain situations in which someone else has to fill the pulpit because the pastor is sick or on vacation. Ok, fine. But the pastor and the session are not COMMITTED to sharing that pulpit with anyone. Like I said above, it’s just the opposite. They’re committed to having that particular pastor in the pulpit to the exclusion of all others as much as possible because that’s what his ordination means. That’s what God has called him to.
The commitment that the RED movement requires makes about as much sense as asking a mother to share her kitchen with the other mothers in the neighborhood. “Dear mother, we’re asking you to commit to having the other mothers in the neighborhood come over and cook your children dinner while you go to their house and cook their children dinner. In this way, all our children will understand that one mother’s cooking is just as good and nutritious as another’s.”
But the loving mother who is committed to her own children might respond, “Why on earth would I want someone else to come and mother my children for me? That doesn’t make any sense.” The cooking of the other mothers in the neighborhood might be just as good if not better than my mother’s, but that completely misses the point of why it’s MY mother cooking me dinner. She’s doing it as an expression of love, a love that it’s impossible for the other mothers in the neighborhood to show me because it has never developed. They aren’t the ones who gave birth to me, changed my dirty diapers and taught me how to talk. There’s only one mother on earth who did that. When she cooks me dinner, it’s a lot more than simply food.
Obviously this is an analogy and not meant to be a one to one correspondence. Nonetheless I think it fits to a degree. I don’t have a problem with joint services, nor am I against ecumenicity. I am against commitments that contradict men’s ordinations.
There also seems to be a tendency in this RED movement to want to put ecumenicity into the hands of individuals, when it belongs more properly in the hands of Presbyteries and General Assemblies. And it seems very much like this tendency is born out of an impatience and discontent with the fact that the Reformed denominations of NAPARC exist as separate churches. This discontent seems to be pushing some to gloss over the very real differences that so far have kept us apart. Perhaps those differences can be worked out, but the fact is, they NEED to be worked out, not simply glossed over or ignored. I’m all about getting to work and sorting out our differences. But that work needs to be accomplished first.
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Let me just add this from a previous post here:
https://oldlife.org/2011/06/22/alliances-ecumencity-and-being-reformed/
In that post, we find that the OPC defines ecclesiastical fellowship as being expressed in part by “Occasional pulpit fellowship (by local option)”. This is the level of ecumenicity that the OPC has with the URC for example. What this language, in my opinion, amounts to is that the OPC as a denomination permits its local churches to have a URC pastor fill their pulpit “by local option”. It is not a command to allow someone from the URC to fill their pulpit, but it’s permission to do so.
The RED churches are asking ministers to change how they receive this guidance, changing it from permission to command. They’re asking you to commit to doing something that your denomination isn’t commanding you to do. They are binding consciences.
The OPC at the denominational level did not think it was wise or biblical to command its churches to allow ministers from other denominations to fill their pulpit. They don’t command its churches to allow even other OPC ministers to fill their pulpit. They leave it to the local sessions to make these decisions because they don’t want to unduly bind consciences.
But here is where the RED movement bothers me. They reject this wisdom. They say, no, we want you to commit to doing this. We want you to sign a contract with us promising that you’ll share your pulpit. Well, I’m sorry, but if I were a pastor, there’s no way I’d sign such a thing.
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OPC Guy.
I understand what you’re saying. I’m not convinced that the intent of RED is to make people actually sign any contract in order to do so. I can ask Dan Borvan, who founded RED with other Westminster guys and ask him to clarify on that point. I believe the entire commitment is to openness of cooperation with other NAPARC churches and not a command to actually hand over your pulpit at any time to another pastor. The spirit of RED, from the guys I have met from Westminster, seems to be one of willful cooperation and not another parachurch group imposing rules outside of the denominational guidelines. There was some relevant dialogue with Old Life Covenanter and Dan Borvan on some of the particular distinctives and the historic closed communion aspect of the RPCNA. Dan at one time said this:
“This is why RED first and foremost promotes ecclesiastical fellowship within one’s own particular denomination. We exist to help RPs work together with RPs, OPs to work together with OPs, etc. I confess ignorance as to the level of cooperation amongst churches in the RPCNA. If you guys are anything like the rest of NAPARC, it could likely be improved, at least to “excel all the more.” We want to see more intra-denominational cooperation. And if RPs are unique in NAPARC at working well together, then you owe it to the rest of us to teach us how to do this in our own denominations. We must learn from you. We need your help to overcome the squabbles within our respective communions so that we can work to accomplish the Great Commission.”
Like I said, I can understand your hesitancy with the language, but I don’t believe that was the spirit of the founding of RED nor its intent. Maybe there should be a change of language. Just curious, have you messaged anyone in RED sharing your concerns?
The whole interchange between OLC and Dan can be found here:
http://redchurches.com/about/
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