Category: Orthodox Presbyterian Church

White Smoke over Synod of Dordt

Published on by D. G. Hart1,260 Comments

Commissioners to the 82nd General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church have unanimously elected Archibald Alison as its moderator. We did not even vote. Only one nomination and then silence.

For information on Archie, go here.

In point of fact, Presbyterians, who do things decently and orderly, don’t blow smoke when we elect a moderator. And being moderator is not a matter of privilege. You are virtually on your feet for 10 hours a day and have to keep score of motions, seconds, substitute motions, Robert’s Rules, and privileges of the floor.

Gray smoke will be evident once commissioners retire for the evening.

Still Spooked by Constantine (or Why I Am A Disestablishmentarian)

Published on by D. G. Hart12 Comments

Why do Christians believe society should be Christian? Did Christ and the apostles entertain such a belief? Keeping Israel Mosaic certainly made sense for about 1500 years of redemptive history but that did not exactly go well. Think exile. And when Christ came, did he try to put Moses back in the Mosaic Covenant? Paul would have us believe otherwise.

But Christendom continues to haunt residents of the West who pine for the days of Christian influence. Oliver O’Donovan defines Christendom this way:

. . . the idea of a professedly Christian secular political order, and the history of that idea in practice. Christendom is an era in which the truth of Christianity was taken to be a truth of secular politics. . . . . Let us say that the era lies between AD 313, the date of the Edict of Milan, and 1791, the date of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. . . . it is the idea of a confessionally Christian government, at once ‘secular’ (in the proper sense of that word, confined to the present age) and obedient to Christ, a promise of the age of his unhindered rule.

When O’Donovan looks for biblical support he has to go more to Israel’s legacy and Christ’s claims about the kingdom of God than he does to anything that Peter and Paul wrote about what Christian rulers should do (as if they ever entertained the idea of a Christian emperor):

The core idea of Christendom is therefore intimately bound up with the church’s mission. But the relationship between mission and Christian political order should not be misconstrued. . . . The church’s one project is to witness to the Kingdom of God. Christendom is the response to mission, and as such a sign that God has blessed it. (The Desire of the Nations, 195)

Not to be a literalist or anything, but the trusty search engine at ESV indicates that Matthew used “kingdom” 53 times in his gospel, Luke 44. Paul in his entire corpus uses the word 14 times (17 if you throw in Hebrews as any Three Forms person should). If declaring the Kingdom of God was a big deal to the apostles, they lost Jesus’ memo.

For that reason, the support for Christian norms in social life are more likely to depend on nostalgia for Christendom (or the theory of it) than on exegesis. Consider the following response to the Marriage Pledge and why Roman Catholics shouldn’t support it:

It is part of the Church’s mission to seek out the State and be united with it; it is the duty of the State to be subject to the Church in matters religious, including those pertaining to the eternal law and the natural law. When the State attempts to create positive law that is contrary to the natural or eternal law, the law itself is invalid. But the Church betrays herself if in confronting evil laws she abandons the State to its own devices. The Church has a positive mission to create concord between the Church and State, not to sow dissension between them. . . .

Thus all marriage (not just Christian marriage!) rightly falls under the authority of the Church. So if, in our times, the State attempts to usurp the rightful authority of the Church by either depriving her ministers of their liberty or by attempting to create laws which are injurious to the natural and eternal law, the role of the Church is to teach, admonish, and ultimately dissolve the temporal authorities. That is what the Magisterium indicates.

If you want evidence of why some Roman Catholics think the magisterium should still be running things, that piece is one where to find a paleo-Roman Catholic construction of Vatican II. But are Presbyterians any less enamored of Christendom or the national (civic) church that gave them legitimacy? Here‘s a defense of the establishment principle from the recent debates among Free Church Scotlanders over Scottish independence (if only the South had used the i-word instead of secession):

Lord Mackay of Clashfearn defines the current status of Church/state relations: “the relationship of the State to the Church of Scotland is one of recognition with a degree of support. As Professor Frank Lyall has said, ‘All that establishment means is that the civil authority has recognised the Church’s self-imposed task to bring the ordi-nances of religion to all Scotland, and looks to the Church on suitable ceremonial oc-casions.’”

What are the duties of the Established Church? In 1877 these were described as: “the protection of the Sabbath, the promotion of scriptural education in the public schools, the conservation of the purity of the Scriptures, and the sacredness of the law of mar-riage.” Today, this scope is greatly diminished: legislation has broken the back of a national recognition of the Sabbath; the state has monopolised education; the free market has removed ecclesiastical oversight from Bible production; and the institution of marriage has succumbed to demands from the gay rights lobby.

And here’s one more for the Lord-of-the-Rings enthusiasts out there. In response, again to the Marriage Pledge, Jake Meador pulls out a quotation from J. R. R. Tolkien:

The last Christian marriage I attended was held under your system: the bridal pair were “married” twice. They married one another before the Church’s witness (a priest), using one set of formulas, and making a vow of lifelong fidelity (and the woman of obedience); they then married again before the State’s witness… using another set of formulas and making no vow of fidelity or obedience. I felt it was an abominable proceeding – and also ridiculous, since the first set of formulas and vows included the latter as the lesser. In fact it was only not ridiculous on the assumption that the State was in fact saying by implication: I do not recognize the existence of your church; you may have taken certain vows in your meeting place but they are just foolishness, private taboos, a burden you take on yourself: a limited and impermanent contract is all that is really necessary for citizens. In other words this “sharp division” is a piece of propaganda, a counter-homily delivered to young Christians fresh from the solemn words of the Christian minister.

Has Meador or Tolkien considered what it’s like to be a Muslim or Jew in a Christian society (think Christendom)? And if we don’t like idea of Sharia law determining civil codes, why should Roman Catholic or Protestant teaching on marriage determine U.S. law? Because more Christians live in the U.S. than non-Christians?

But more to the point, have these folks contemplated whether Jesus and the apostles favored an establishment principle or where the early Christians went to be married? I don’t know the answer to the latter. But I do sense that Christendom is alive and well and that lots of Christians still pine for it. If the church as a pilgrim people not responsible for public affairs was a good thing for the early church, why not for Christians today? I mean, could anyone possibly imagine the OPC as the established church of the United States being responsible for religious life across the nation? (Imagine how long General Assembly would be!) That thought experiment might well put any number of Christian warriors off the Christendom project.

That Funny Thing You (military) Do

Published on by D. G. Hart38 Comments

Is it wrong to be ambivalent about the U.S. military, or at least about the ways that Americans manipulate empathy for soldiers to produce a faux patriotism? A couple of recent incidents rekindled this question (which given its length may need a lot of kindling).

During halftime at the Crisler Center at the University of Michigan, the athletic department decided to honor one veteran recently home from the Middle East. The announcer asked for standing applause on the basis of what this young man had done to keep the United States free. The crowd responded positively, even the university students who one might have thought were more interested in the legacy of pacifists like the Big Lebowski than in the foreign policy of two different White House administrations.

Since I was grading papers and didn’t want to drop my pen again below the seats (occupied) in the row ahead, I remained seated and clapped my hands in a way that an Edwardsian would have charged as simply going through the motions. But as I looked around I wondered if the security guards at the arena would receive a similar standing ovation for making possible a peaceful space to root on our team. Or what about the police of Ann Arbor or Hillsdale who do put their lives on the line everyday also to make the United States a free society (though not everyone sees the police of America that way)? I certainly respect the courage and sacrifice that U.S. soldiers make and it is a calling that is conceivably more dangerous than monitoring fans at a basketball game (though I’m not entirely sure that all soldiers face the same dangers that police do). And while I admire the service that soldiers give to their country, what if I don’t think the United States should have military bases all around the world where the nation puts at risk the lives of her military? I certainly support wars of national defense when foes truly threaten our homeland. But can we really say that regime change in Iraq is protecting national security? It may be indirectly, though which citizen is privy to the intelligence reports that allow the government to make that case? But do I really need to think it my patriotic duty to support soldiers who are functioning in some way as global cops, that is, trying to bring order to other places in the world but not really protecting the security of Michigan’s residents?

When it comes to the military, the churches — my second incident — are not much more discerning about the U.S. military. For Veterans Day, Joe Carter posted 9 things we should know about military chaplains (doesn’t Carter know 7 is the perfect number?). One thing he did not mention, that we really should know, those of us who want ministers to be free and uncompromised in their ministry of word and sacrament, is that OPC or PCA chaplains minister alongside not merely Roman Catholics or United Methodists but also Muslims, Jews, and Wiccans. According to Carter:

The denominations with the largest representation (more than 100, both active and reserve) are: Southern Baptist Convention (787), Roman Catholic Church (350), United Methodist Church (274), Evangelical Church Alliance (174), General Council of Assemblies of God (153), Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (149), and Evangelical Lutheran Church In America (128)

The spread sheet that comes linked to Carter’s post also indicates that the PCA has 1194 active chaplains compared to 2392 Wiccans.

I can appreciate the Defense Department’s reasons for employing military chaplains:

The purpose of chaplaincies. . . is to “accommodate religious needs, to provide religious and pastoral care, and to advise commanders on the complexities of religion with regard to its personnel and mission, as appropriate. As military members, chaplains are uniquely positioned to assist Service members, their families, and other authorized personnel with the challenges of military service as advocates of religious, moral, and spiritual well being and resiliency.”

Since Reformed Protestants (unlike Anabaptists) have no inherent objection to Christians serving in the military (in just wars, anyway), I certainly support provision for the spiritual well-being of soldiers. But if an Orthodox Presbyterian Army private is in a unit in Afghanistan where his only options are an American Baptist, a Rabbi, or a Mormon, I guess I encourage him to go to the Baptist’s services. But is the Department of Defense really providing for the religious needs of soldiers if they don’t have a chaplain for each soldier’s religious tradition or communion? One way around this is to have denominationally or religiously specific units — a unit of Wiccans with their own Chaplain and a unit of conservative Presbyterians with theirs. Another might be to fight exclusively wars of territorial defense — that way soldiers scattered across the United States might worship and receive spiritual counsel at local churches.

But why is it that confessional Protestants are generally so bullish on military chaplaincy? (Hint, the manipulative patriotism that goes with uncritical support of the military.) And why is it synods and assemblies allow men under their oversight to minister in contexts that are far worse spiritually (e. g., doctrinal indifference, religious syncretism) than those liberal Protestant communions (or their ecumenical agencies) that those Presbyterian and Reformed pastors and elders left behind?

What's to Abhor?

Published on by D. G. Hart63 Comments

One of the arresting vows that church members take in Presbyterian circles is this:

Do you confess that because of your sinfulness you abhor and humble yourself before God, that you repent of your sin, and that you trust for salvation not in yourself but in Jesus Christ alone?

Important to consider is that this is something someone who has already converted or been baptized and reared in the church is supposed to answer in the affirmative. That means that someone who is already regenerate and progressing in sanctification is supposed to affirm. After all, we don’t go straight from the conversion experience to a gathering of the congregation to receive members.

Why is it then that someone who is holy and sanctified, since these are parts of the gospel as some tell us, would abhor himself (notice too that we require the fairer sex also to abhor herself)? And why is it that we need to understand, as the gospel networkers are encouraging us to learn, that growth in holiness does not lead to spiritual pride?

We deny that assurance gained through growth in godliness amounts to a performance-based religion or necessitates an unwholesome spiritual pride. . . .

We deny that rejoicing in victories over sin amounts to spiritual pride or performance religion, although Christians may and sometimes do sin in this way.

This makes me wonder if our membership vows need to be revised. Should we add a membership vow that asks, “do you rejoice now and will you continue to do so in your victories over sin?” Or is the posture of abhorrence much more fitting for those who join the body of Christ?

Now if you believe Jesus is in some sense (hear that republicationists) like us, then you may not care for the language of abhorrence. Then again, if you affirm what Machen explained about the uniqueness of Christ, disgust with yourself may not be so bad:

Certainly Jesus had a religion of His own; His prayer was real prayer, His faith was real religious faith. His relation to His heavenly Father was not merely that of a child to a father; it was that of a man to his God. Certainly Jesus had a religion; without it His humanity would indeed have been but incomplete. Without doubt Jesus had a religion; the fact is of the utmost importance. But it is equally important to observe that that religion which Jesus had was not Christianity. Christianity is a way of getting rid of sin, and Jesus was without sin. His religion was a religion of Paradise, not a religion of sinful humanity. It was a religion to which we may perhaps in some sort attain in heaven, when the process of our purification is complete (though even then the memory of redemption will never leave us); but certainly it is not a religion with which we can begin. The religion of Jesus was a religion of untroubled sonship; Christianity is a religion of the attainment of sonship by the redeeming work of Christ. (Christianity and Liberalism, 92)

Golden Oldie (part three)

Published on by D. G. Hart15 Comments

From Make War No More?: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of J. Gresham Machen’s Warrior Children

J. Gresham Machen may not be the gold standard for twentieth-century Reformed orthodoxy but he does stand out not only in every account of American Presbyterianism but in most accounts of religion in United States as arguably the most important defender of historic Christianity. Some of the reasons are circumstantial. Machen happened to be teaching at a seminary, Princeton, that was firmly linked to the Protestant establishment and that had a long history of educating conservatives in other denominations. This placed Machen at the center of a the fundamentalist controversy when it erupted in the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. with support and admiration from non-Presbyterian conservatives. If he had been teaching at Columbia Seminary in South Carolina or at Wheaton College, the reporters who covered the religion beat in America would likely have been less interested than in a Princeton professor. Other reasons for Machen’s reputation stem from those attributes he brought to bear in his circumstances. His writings show remarkable acumen, courage, and even fairness to his opponents. In addition, Machen carried on in his battles with liberalism for the better part of two decades and, not being content with celebrity or individual effort, recognized the importance of establishing institutions to sustain a Reformed witness. As a man of his times and a person who distinguished himself from his contemporaries, Machen was, in the words of the novelist, Pearl Buck, “worth a hundred of his fellows who, as princes of the church, occupy easy places and play their church politics and trim their sails to every win, who in their smug observance of the convention sof life and religion offend all honest and searching spirits.” That is why Buck, whom Machen had opposed, wished that he had lived longer so he could “go on fighting them.”

Yet, for all of Machen’s accomplishments, the verdict on his efforts has been mixed even among conservative Presbyterians and evangelicals. Much of the discomfort with Machen surrounds his flair for controversy. Of course, critics such as Robert Moats Miller, the biographer of Harry Emerson Fosdick, might be expected to focus on the unflattering aspects of Machen’s career. In fact, Machen’s combativeness was so extreme for Miller that he could, without qualification or fear of misinterpretation, in a respectable academic journal refer to Machen as “quite loony.” Ernest R. Sandeen, one of the first American historians to give fundamentalism an even-handed inquiry would not let his impartiality extend to Machen whose belligerency was supposedly characterized by “perverse obstinacy.”

But when scholars with ecclesial ties to Machen demonstrate a similar unease with his combativeness, the problem is particularly grave. On the fiftieth anniversary of Machen’s death, Mark A. Noll, then an elder in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, observed that the cost of Machen’s contentiousness was “large.” He “undermined the effectiveness of those Reformed and evangelical individuals who chose to remain at Princeton Seminary, with the Presbyterian mission board, and in the Northern Presbyterian Church.” Furthermore, according to Noll, Machen “left successors ill-equipped to deal with the more practical matters of evangelism, social outreach, and devotional nurture.” George M. Marsden, in a piece for Princeton Seminary Bulletin expressed similar reservations to Noll’s about Machen’s “cantankerousness.” Even though Marsden was a son of the OPC and his father had been a prominent official in the OPC and at Westminster Seminary, he still could not warm up to Machen’s propensity to fight. Marsden conceded that Machen’s critique of liberalism had merit, but he “had a personality that only his good friends found appealing, and he stood for a narrow Old School confessionalism and exclusivism that many people today find appalling.”

One last example of an Orthodox Presbyterian who could not stomach Machen’s combativeness is John R. Frame, for many years a professor at Westminster (in Philadelphia and at California) and a minister in the OPC. In his book, Evangelical Reunion Frame indicated his discomfort with the militancy that had characterized the OPC since its founding, and more recently in his infamous article, “Machen’s Warrior Children,” he registered a complaint similar to Noll and Marsden: “The Machen movement was born in the controversy over liberal theology.” “I have no doubt that Machen and his colleagues were right to reject this theology and to fight it,” Frame added. “But it is arguable that once the Machenites found themselves in a ‘true Presbyterian church’ they were unable to moderate their martial impulses. Being in a church without liberals to fight, they turned on one another.”

Aside from the merits of these assessments, the verdicts of Noll, Marsden, and Frame all point to a curious phenomenon among those in the second generation of Orthodox Presbyterians – that is, an unwillingness to fight for the Reformed faith combined with a strong dose of theological and ecclesiastical pacifism. None of these scholars thought Machen was wrong to oppose liberalism per se even if each person might assess the strength’s of Machen’s critique differently. But beyond the errors that liberalism posed, like many who were associated with the institutions that Machen founded – the OPC, Westminster Seminary, and the Presbyterian Guardian – these scholars were unprepared to go. Combating liberalism, then, was apparently acceptable because it was obviously wrong. But opposing errors among evangelical or Reformed Christians was apparently unacceptable for many in the second generation. Indeed, the views of Noll, Marsden, and Frame were not unusual among conservative Presbyterians during the 1970s and 1980s. In the OPC particularly, the reasons for contending for the Reformed faith looked increasingly pointless and the church sought ways to escape its rut, first by seeking a merger with the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod, and then with the Presbyterian Church in America. In less than forty years, the fight had left the OPC and with its departure had come reassessments of Machen, his role in the controversies of the 1920s and 1930s, and even his legacy.

Deadline Extended!!

Published on by D. G. Hart10 Comments

The OPC Summer Institute is still looking for qualified young men from seminary and college who are considering the vocation of ministry in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The new deadline is May 15, 2013. For two days (June 18-20, 2013) in the delightful setting of New Hampshire’s White Mountains, church officers will lead participants in readings and discussions of topics of particular relevance to ministry in the OPC. These include: the distinguishing characteristics of Reformed Protestantism; the nature and value of confessional churches, the importance of the means of grace, the pilgrim character of the Christian life, and the work and proper expectations for a pastor (in either an organized congregation or mission work).

If you are interested in attending or know of someone who may be, consult this application form for the email address of the Institute’s director or simply respond to this post.

Called To Communion Hype and Roman Catholic Reality

Published on by D. G. Hart366 Comments

Bryan Cross’ response to Nick Batzig on the Reformed view of imputation has kicked up a little dust over at Green Baggins and for good reason, though I plan to go in a direction different from many of the Protestant complaints. Cross contends that Roman Catholics understand justification through the lens of agape while Reformed Protestants use a list paradigm:

From a Catholic point of view, as I explained in “Why John Calvin did not Recognize the Distinction Between Mortal and Venial Sin,” there are two different paradigms here regarding what it means to keep the law. Call one the list paradigm, and call the other the agape paradigm. In the list paradigm, perfect law-keeping is conceived as keeping a list of God given precepts. According to this paradigm, perfect law-keeping requires perfectly and perpetually keeping (and not in any way violating) every single precept in the list. In the New Covenant, we are given more gifts for growing progressively in our ability to keep the law, but nevertheless, nobody in this life keeps the list perfectly. All fall short of God’s perfect standard of righteousness. That’s the paradigm through which Batzig views God’s requirement of righteousness for salvation.

In the agape paradigm, by contrast, agape is the fulfillment of the law. Agape is not merely some power or force or energy by which one is enabled better to keep the list of rules, either perfectly or imperfectly. Rather, agape is what the law has pointed to all along. To have agape in one’s soul is to have the perfect righteousness to which the list of precepts point. Righteousness conceived as keeping a list of externally written precepts is conceptually a shadow of the true righteousness which consists of agape infused into the soul. This infusion of agape is the law written on the heart. But the writing of the law on the heart should not be conceived as merely memorizing the list of precepts, or being more highly motivated to keep the list of precepts. To conceive of agape as merely a force or good motivation that helps us better (but imperfectly, in this life) keep the list of rules, is still to be in the list paradigm. The writing of the law on the heart provides in itself the very fulfillment of the law — that perfection to which the external law always pointed. To have agape is already to have fulfilled the telos of the law, a telos that is expressed in our words, deeds, and actions because they are all ordered to a supernatural end unless we commit a mortal sin. The typical Protestant objection to the Catholic understanding of justification by the infusion of agape is “Who perfectly loves God? No one.” But this objection presupposes the list paradigm.

This is rich given the recent news out of the Vatican that Rome has added to the Church’s list of deadly sins. (Look for the words list and agape.)

After 1,500 years the Vatican has brought the seven deadly sins up to date by adding seven new ones for the age of globalization. The list, published yesterday in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, came as the Pope deplored the “decreasing sense of sin” in today’s “secularized world” and the falling numbers of Roman Catholics going to confession.

The new deadly sins include polluting, genetic engineering, being obscenely rich, drug dealing, abortion, pedophilia and causing social injustice.

So the communion that originally gave us a list of sins is adding to the list. Agape indeed.

And to underscore the point — which is that Bryan Cross has remarkable intellectual gifts that have little purchase in reality — consider that the little, old (not ancient, of course) Orthodox Presbyterian Church, with all of its alleged list mentality, resisted mightily producing lists of sins. One occasion came in 1950 when the church, through a study committee of the General Assembly, concluded that belonging to the Free Masons was a sin. But contrary to some in the church who wanted a constitutional amendment to list Masonry as a sin, the committee opposed the composition of lists of sin:

Although it is unwarranted to condemn all cataloguing of sins by the church, history shows that it ma easily be carried so far as to become fraught with undesirable consequences. This danger becomes especially great when the church in its official book of discipline seeks to enumerate the precise sins which render their doers subject to ecclesiastical censures. . . .

It is obviously impossible for the church to draw up a complete catalogue of sins. Any list is certain to be a partial one. The almost unavoidable result will be that the members of the church will receive an unbalanced view of the Christian life. For example, let us suppose that a church catalogues as offenses certain types of worldliness, as gambling, the performance or viewing of immoral or sacrilegious theatricals, and many forms of
modern dancing. The danger is far from imaginary that the psychological effect of such partial cataloguing will be that other forms of worldliness, which in the sight of God are no less reprehensible, such as the love of money, the telling of salacious jokes by toastmasters and other speakers at banquets, the display of wealth in a palatial dwelling, and the stressing of the numerical rather than the spiritual growth of a church, to name no more, will be condoned and even overlooked. In another respect too the cataloguing of sins is liable to result in an unbalanced conception of the Christian life. It may easily impart the impression that Christian living is essentially negative rather than positive. Church members will be led to stress the separated life at the expense of the consecrated life. Very plainly put, they will conclude that merely not to do this and that and a third thing is the essence of Christian living and is proof of the Christianity of him who abstains from these things. (1950 GA Minutes, 26)

In case you didn’t notice, the church allegedly characterized by the agape paradigm makes lists of sins. And one of the churches that you might expect to draw up a list of sins, given its supposed reliance on the list paradigm, has tried not to make lists.

In which case, I am not sure what Bryan Cross’ point is other than to show the inadequacies of Protestants always in the peace of Christ.

Postscript:

The Baltimore Catechism on sin:
52. Q. What is actual sin? A. Actual sin is any willful thought, word, deed or omission contrary to the law of God.

The Shorter Catechism on sin:
14. Q. What is sin? A. Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God.

We print, realists decide.

If You Need Some Ecclesiology to Go with Your W-W

Published on by D. G. Hart6 Comments

The OPC is seeking applications from college students and seminarians for its Summer Institute. This year’s sessions will be conducted again at Shiloh Lodge from June 19 to 21 in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Successful applicants will have their travel and lodging expenses covered.

The Summer Institute offers a glimpse of Reformed ministry as understood and practiced in the OPC. Instructors include John Muether, Greg Reynolds, and (all about me) D. G. Hart. Students will spend several days considering the following topics:

The OPC’s distinguishing characteristics and continuity with the Reformed tradition.

The centrality, nature and benefits of being a confessional church.

The importance of the means of grace in the church’s mission.

The church’s calling as a pilgrim people.

The work of a minister of the Word in an organized church and a mission work.

For more information, go here. The application deadline is April 16 but extensions may be granted.

Moderate 2K in the OPC: No (April's) Fooling

Published on by D. G. Hart27 Comments

The April issue (online) of Ordained Servant is out and the theme is Natural Law. It features two articles that have 2k fingerprints all over them, David VanDrunen’s on natural law in Reformed theology and David Noe’s on the differences between redemption and culture and the implications of this difference for so-called Christian education. Here are a few highlights.

From VanDrunen:

. . . a Reformed theology of natural law should be grounded in a theology of nature, which in turn should be grounded in our covenant theology. When thinking about a theology of nature, it makes sense first to consider Genesis 1 and the original covenant of works. Genesis 1 makes immediately clear that God’s creating activity instills the entire natural world with order and purpose. His creation is objectively meaningful. Another thing Genesis 1 explicitly teaches is that God made human beings in his image, and this image entailed knowledge, righteousness, and holiness (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10). Human beings were thus subjectively capable of comprehending and acting upon the truth communicated in nature. To say that the natural order is objectively meaningful and that human beings are subjectively capable of apprehending its meaning may seem like obvious assertions to many Christians, but they are crucial foundation to a theology of natural law, and they emerge already from Genesis 1. We also observe in Genesis 1 that God made man in his image for the purpose of exercising dominion in the world. God had exercised supreme dominion in creating the world, and man, according to his likeness, was to rule the world under him. If man was to rule the world in God’s likeness, he had to rule it not aimlessly but toward a goal, for God himself worked, then passed through his own judgment (Gen 1:31), and finally rested. As taught in our doctrine of the covenant of works, God made man to work, then to pass through his judgment, and finally to join him in his eschatological rest. Genesis 1, I believe, does not allow us to separate our doctrine of the image of God from the covenant of works, as if the latter were simply added on at some point after man’s creation. God made human beings by nature to work in this world and then to attain eschatological life. Thus the original order of nature communicated not only man’s basic moral obligations toward God but also the fact that God would judge him for his response and reward or punish him accordingly.

In light of the fall, however, we cannot simply view natural law now through the lens of the original creation. Accordingly, I suggest that it is helpful to view natural law in the present world through the lens of the covenant with Noah in Genesis 8:20–9:17, for this is the means by which God now preserves and governs both the cosmic and social realms. This covenant makes clear that God still orders the cosmos and makes it objectively meaningful, though its purposes have been obscured, and that he still deals with all human beings as his image-bearers, though they are fallen. God gives human beings responsibilities adapted for a fallen world, but these responsibilities resemble those under the original creation order. We are to be fruitful and multiply, to rule the animals responsibly, and to pursue justice (Gen 9:1–7). God did not impose these obligations arbitrarily; they correspond to the nature with which he created us. The very commission to do justice is grounded in human nature: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image” (9:6).

From Noe:

I teach Classics for the glory of God. I do this because he has saved me from my sins, and reconciled me to himself through the vicarious atonement of his Son freely given for me. This makes what I do Christian, but it seems that this is only because I seek, Dei gratia, to do it for his glory.

I use in this instruction a vast array of books, tools, terms, and skills, the overwhelming majority of which were produced by men and women whose motivations are likely different than mine. Moreover, while their motivations sometimes differ from mine in ways that are un-Christian, I as a Christian am utterly at a loss to find a better, or sometimes even different way to do the things they did despite my having a motivation that is sanctified. In fact, efforts to find a uniquely Christian way to teach Classics, for example, seem both vain and futile, as well as ungrateful in that they risk denying the common grace God has given the wicked, the rain he has sent on us both, and by which he has apparently intended to bless me also.

. . . it seems to me that, as with cycling, philosophy, and music, the most we can say about “Christian education” is that it is education delivered or provided by Christians. This, of course, is not an unimportant claim. But when we say that, however, we are once again talking about dispositions and motives and saying nothing distinguishable either about the process or the result of that process. In short, it seems there may be no such thing as Christian education after all, at least not in the sense in which it seems often used, and that grand adjective which indicates a special closeness with the divine Son of God ought, perhaps, to be confined within a much closer compass: to persons whom Christ has saved, the worship such persons offer, and the study and promulgation of the divine Word on which that worship is based. If by “Christian education” this is what is meant, the term seems quite apt.

Critics of 2k will no doubt conclude that the OPC is lurching toward theological confusion by giving a hearing to such views. But the OPC’s stance could very well be an indication that 2kers are fully within the bounds of the church’s confession. If that is so, then 2k’s critics are the radical ones.

Old Life Leaven

Published on by D. G. Hart5 Comments

The new issue of Ordained Servant features the addresses that John Muether and I gave at the pre-General Assembly this past June. Here is the conclusion from Muether’s talk about the different interpreters — from Marsden and Noll to Woolley and Dennison — of Orthodox Presbyterian history:

THE OPC AS BIG AND SMALL

The OPC is a doctrinal church in an anti-doctrinal age, according to Woolley, a culture of dissent in an establishmentarian age, per Dennison, and a spiritual body in a politically-saturated and culture-obsessed age, writes Hart. If this is a countervailing narrative to the broader and more popular telling, it is not a new story that is being narrated. Rather, this is an echo from our Presbyterian past.

Let us return one more time to 1986 and the failed union vote. As we noted, the vote was perceived as looking backward not forward, inward instead of outward, exclusive rather than inclusive. What is striking about the rhetoric surrounding the union that didn’t happen was its similarity to arguments that accompanied a union that did happen, a century earlier in American Presbyterian history: the 1869 reunion between the Old School Presbyterian Church and the New School Presbyterian Church that healed the breech that took place in 1837. That reunion was also accompanied by a pervasive sense that Presbyterians were confronting a forward-looking ecumenical moment that had to be seized. The Civil War had just ended and the fractured Union needed a united Presbyterian witness. Both camps, New School and Old School, generally expressed hopefulness over this opportunity.

Amid the enthusiasm Charles Hodge sounded his dissent, fearing that Old School Presbyterian identity would be lost for the sake of national expedience. Hodge’s fears proved accurate. In Lefferts Loetscher’s words, the reunion of 1869 produced the largely unintentional consequence of a “broadening church.” Within twenty-five years of the reunion, northern Presbyterians began serious efforts at creedal revision, setting the stage for the Presbyterian controversy of the 1930s.

This is not to suggest that a similarly catastrophic future would have confronted the OPC had it merged with the PCA. But what is noteworthy in this comparison is that Hodge refused to concede that opposition to union relegated him to a position of sectarian isolationism. Hodge believed that the Old School Presbyterian Church had a unique role to fulfill. His plea was not a call for an inward, backward, and exclusive church. On the contrary, he believed that Presbyterians could best serve other denominations first by being faithful as confessional Presbyterians.

As reframed, the OPC’s “alien” identity, for all its reputation for being isolated and uncooperative, may point in the direction of genuine ecumenicity. The OPC serves the universal church when it is steadfastly and self-consciously Reformed. When we narrate the OPC in this way, we can appreciate better the Reformed catholicity of our small church. The OPC continues to serve as a leader in shaping Reformed faith and witness for several emerging Reformed churches throughout the world. It is possible for us to imagine, along with Hodge, Machen, and Van Til, a vital ecumenical role for a confessionally precise church.

So who narrates the OPC? This is not a call to silence any voices either within or beyond the church. It is an appeal to listen carefully to all speakers, taking note of the assumptions of the narrators. And it suggests an answer to the protest of twenty-five years ago: the OPC did not lose its story. American pilgrims continue to discover the OPC in their wanderings through the wasteland of Evangelical or mainline Protestantism. Contemporary discussions in the denomination reveal its ongoing commitment to the whole counsel of God. Issues before our recent General Assembly—the character of Reformed worship, the principles of biblical stewardship, and the relationship between justification and good works—these reveal a church making the progress that Paul Woolley was actively promoting.

At seventy-five, the OPC still displays a willingness to proclaim to other churches and to a watching world the Reformed faith in all its fullness. To invoke the words of R. B. Kuiper, the OPC on its seventy-fifth anniversary is still very small. But it continues to stand for something very big.