(TMI Alert!) Last Sunday my wife and I were publicly received by the OPC congregation in Hillsdale, Michigan. The reception took place during a public worship service on Sunday morning. Despite all the public matters transpiring, very few people noticed. Aside from members of session who decided to receive us by letter of transfer, the email recipients who learned of the time for our reception, and the worshipers themselves who gathered last Sunday (a small group when the college is not in session), no one else knew about these public events. No one from the Hillsdale newspaper covered the event. Session filed no papers with state or federal authorities monitoring church membership. Session did not even hire a publicity firm to promote this part of the worship service. (How dare them!)

And yet it was all public.

According to the OPC’s Directory for Public Worship, Lord’s Day worship is public:

While believers are to worship in secret as individuals and in private as families, they are also to worship as churches in assemblies of public worship, which are not carelessly or willfully to be neglected or forsaken. Public worship occurs when God, by his Word and Spirit, through the lawful government of the church, calls his people to assemble to worship him together. (1.1.c

Also, according to the Directory the reception of members is also public, as in the Directory supplies directions for “The Public Reception of Church Members”:

When a person is received into membership on letter of transfer from another Orthodox Presbyterian congregation, that reception is effective at the time of the action of the session to receive him. Nevertheless, a session may deem it appropriate to welcome that person publicly into the congregation and allow him to give public expression to his faith. If this is done, it shall be made clear to the congregation that the person has already been received by action of the session. (DPW, 4.C)

Critics of 2k often point out that this dualistic doctrine is wrongheaded because it marginalizes faith and puts in a box of privacy. Instead of interacting with all spheres of life, as allegedly all Christians are required to do, 2k believers hide their faith under a bushel. Even worse, they supposedly ratchet up the binary distinction between the public and the private, leaving the former to public officials and the latter to people who do ministry.

But if I’m right about the public nature of what happened last Sunday at Hillsdale OPC, then the critics of 2k are wrong. A spiritual church is just as public as what happens in the public square. It’s just that people who believe in the spirituality of the church don’t need the people supervising the public square to validate the importance of what transpires in public spiritual activities. Public church affairs are plenty important even if the public authorities don’t notice.