Resistance to the American revisions to the Westminster Standards takes different forms.  All objections to the American Presbyterian church’s changes proceed from discomfort with political liberalism of the John Locke variety, even if the focus of historical attention wanders (is it the postwar (WWII) consensus that is the problem or the protections of religious freedom that Jefferson and Madison introduced?).  For that reason, objections to the American revisions can take the following forms:

1) The 1787 changes were not substantial since the revisers did not revise the Larger Catechism where church teaching still gives magistrates grounds to suppress false religion (the common references here are WLC 108 which does not refer to the magistrate and WLC 191 which does);

2) The 1787 revisions, even if they did change the Confession, do not require church officer today to reject the original Westminster Confession;

3) The revision of chapter twenty-three shifts the grounds from protecting Presbyterian churches exclusively to the magistrate’s responsibility to protect all Protestant denominations.

This last objection is arguably the most common and it gives cover to the argument that the magistrate has a responsibility to promote (not maintain, the language of the confession) the true religion.  This is, by the way, an odd argument for confessional Presbyterians to make since it is basically a National Association of Evangelicals approach.  If Presbyterians were serious about being Presbyterian, why would they want the magistrate to protect churches that the Westminster Confession regards as “less pure” than the “more pure” churches of the Reformed confessions? 

Be that as it may, the revision of chapter twenty-three is still odd because it says more than what ChristNats (or ChristNat adjacent) want the confession to say.

The best reading of the chapter for Christian Nationalism purposes is in the confession’s own words:

Civil magistrates may not assume to themselves the administration of the Word and sacraments; or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven; or, in the least, interfere in matters of faith. Yet, as nursing fathers, it is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the church of our common Lord, without giving the preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest, in such a manner that all ecclesiastical persons whatever shall enjoy the full, free, and unquestioned liberty of discharging every part of their sacred functions, without violence or danger. And, as Jesus Christ hath appointed a regular government and discipline in his church, no law of any commonwealth should interfere with, let, or hinder, the due exercise thereof, among the voluntary members of any denomination of Christians, according to their own profession and belief.

If that were all the confessional revision said, ChristNats would win the debate.  Here you have the magistrate as a nursing father (not a tranny, of course) protecting the common faith of Christ.  That sounds like the revisers were making room for Baptists; Methodists were not yet a factor in United States Protestantism.  You also have an explicit reference to “denominations,” a word that became much more common among sociologists a century later for understanding the unity and diversity of Anglo-American Protestantism. 

This part of the chapter also explicitly refers to churchly activity such as “sacred functions,” “government and discipline” of the church, “profession” of faith, and church officers (“ecclesiastical persons”).

So far, the revision of chapter twenty-three, paragraph three, no matter what we do with the Larger Catechism, sounds fairly friendly to Protestantism as the preferred religion in the United States (now if only the ChristNats would avoid the old tactic of calling R2K “Lutheran,” as if – get this – Lutheranism were beyond the pale of Protestantism). 

But!

The revision of chapter twenty-three does not stop with the magistrate as a nursing father protecting generic Protestantism.  If that is what the revisers had intended, they should have stopped – in a Full Stop way – with this language (to repeat):

Civil magistrates may not assume to themselves the administration of the Word and sacraments; or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven; or, in the least, interfere in matters of faith. Yet, as nursing fathers, it is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the church of our common Lord, without giving the preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest, in such a manner that all ecclesiastical persons whatever shall enjoy the full, free, and unquestioned liberty of discharging every part of their sacred functions, without violence or danger. And, as Jesus Christ hath appointed a regular government and discipline in his church, no law of any commonwealth should interfere with, let, or hinder, the due exercise thereof, among the voluntary members of any denomination of Christians, according to their own profession and belief.

The American Presbyterian officers who revised the Confession of Faith did not stop there. Instead, they added the most troubling language and the highest hurdles for ChristNats who want to find a home in the American revisions.  This is what the American church added to chapter twenty-three:

It is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the person and good name of all their people, in such an effectual manner as that no person be suffered, either upon pretense of religion or of infidelity, to offer any indignity, violence, abuse, or injury to any other person whatsoever: and to take order, that all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies be held without molestation or disturbance.

Civil magistrates – who do not need to be Christian, by the way – have a DUTY to protect all their people.  “Duty” is the same word used to describe the responsibility of magistrates to protect “the church of our common Lord.”  This word choice would seem to indicate the same responsibility to non-Protestants as the one as “nursing father” (not a tranny, of course) to Protestants. 

Of course, the language of “all their people” indicates that magistrates have a duty to protect (not maintain) people who are not professing Protestants. 

The magistrate’s duty is precisely to protect such people, whether on the basis (“pretense”) of accusations of false religion or infidelity, from “any indignity, violence, abuse, or injury.”  In other words, the magistrate, acting as “nursing father” (not a tranny, of course), has a duty to protect non-Protestants from persecution.

That duty is at odds with suppressing false religion, such as passing and enforcing blasphemy or Sunday laws. 

But if the revised chapter twenty-three supports religious freedom in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution manner – which conflicts bigly with ChristNat arguments – notice also what the revision says not merely about personal or individual beliefs but also organized non-Protestant religion.  The magistrate has a duty to see that:

all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies be held without molestation or disturbance.

This would seem to apply to both non-Protestant Christians (ecclesiastical assemblies) and to Jewish believers (religious assemblies). “Assemblies” is a curious word since it is a word that characterized both the highest judicatory in the Church of Scotland as well as the legislatures of colonies and later states like Virginia and Pennsylvania. If the revisers of the Confession had wanted to indicate that they needed to live with Jews and Roman Catholics in the United States and that those Americans needed to be able legally to hold their own non-Protestant faiths, they did not need to add that assemblies of believers other than Protestants should be able to assemble (what assemblies do) beyond maintaining (not promoting) their own private convictions. But that was not what the revisions did. Instead, the revised chapter twenty-third chapter of the Confession of faith taught that the magistrate has a DUTY!! to protect the persons of non-Protestants and also to protect their assemblies.

The debate between ChristNats and regular Presbyterians over chapter twenty-three boils down to this: ChristNats prefer that the revision stopped with the phrase, “any denomination of Christians, according to their own profession and belief.”  Regular Presbyterians instead MAINTAIN AND PROMOTE the entire revised chapter, all the way to the magistrate’s duty to protect “the religious and ecclesiastical assemblies” of non-Protestants.