Does Anyone in the United States Care about Presbyterianism?

Published on by D. G. Hart4 Comments

The oldest presbytery in North or South America is moving. Actually, the offices are relocating since it is hard to move a jurisdiction or the congregations within it. But the Presbytery of Philadelphia (PCUSA), founded in 1706, is moving from its Center City location at 22nd and Locust to the Mt. Airy neighborhood in the northwest section of the city.

One curious aspect of this move – aside from giving up a very handsome building and reasonably good location – is that no one seems to notice or care. A search at Google for news stories reveals that no editors, even religious ones, have the New World’s oldest presbytery on their horizon. But when the Mormons plan to build a Temple in Center City, well, now you’re talking news copy and readers.

Another consideration is what this move may indicate about the declining fortunes of the mainline Protestant churches. Back in 1989 the United Churches of Christ moved from its Manhattan offices to Cleveland. Nothing wrong with the latter city, and maybe the UCC staff were able to enjoy Lebron’s exploits (they sure beat the Knick’s recent performance). But I’m not sure an NBA game makes up in stature for headquarters in the Big Apple. Tim Keller likely agrees.

Presbyterians had actually begun the trend of denominational downsizing by leaving New York City’s high overhead and big britches reputation to bridge the gap between bureaucrats and regular church folk. After the 1983 merger of the UPCUSA (North) and the PCUS (South) into the present iteration of the PCUSA, the mainline denomination in 1988 gave up its New York City address for Louisville, the biggest city in the old border state of Kentucky. (Another consequence of the merger was that the denomination could not maintain both archival centers, the one in Philadelphia at the Presbyterian Historical Society and the one in Montreat, NC, at the Montreat Historical Society. In 2005 the denomination decided to move the southern materials to Philadelphia, where they are in very good hands but farther from the hands most willing to sort through them.)

Now the denomination’s oldest presbytery is moving its offices from the center of Philadelphia to one of its peripheral neighborhoods. The presbytery’s website gives no reason but the “for sale” sign on the old location suggests that cheaper real estate is a factor. Mt. Airy is a fine neighborhood but it is not Center City nor was it part of William Penn’s original boundaries for his “Holy Experiment.” The move is a significant development in the life of New World Presbyterianism. But no one seems to care. They don’t even know.

The Underbelly of Gay Marriage

Published on by D. G. Hart60 Comments

The federal court decision on California’s Prop 8 legislation has prompted many responses. One significant theme is that conservative Protestants, who oppose gay marriage, whether from the pulpit or in ordination standards and hiring practices, should prepare for continued marginalization and even legislative harassment if they continue to publicly oppose gay marriage. In this vein, Carl Trueman writes:

Those evangelical leaders, academics and evangelical institutions that prize their place at the table and their invitations to appear on `serious’ television programs, and who enjoy being asked to offer their opinion to the wider culture had better be prepared to make a choice. As I have said before in this column, we are not far from the place where to oppose homosexuality will be regarded as in the same moral bracket as white supremacy. Those types only appear on Jerry Springer; and Jerry generally doesn’t typically ask them their opinion on the ethics of medical research, the solution to the national debt, or the importance of poetry to a rounded education.

(BTW, Trueman adds that the older generation of conservative Protestants dropped the ball on this one and failed to produce an exegetical argument against homosexuality. He remembers that for his peers, “now in middle age, dislike of homosexuality . . . had more to do with our own cultural backgrounds than with any biblical argumentation.” He even admits that “we were basically bigots and we needed to change.” Trueman may be too young and too English to remember – if he is middle-aged, what does that make me? – that when John Boswell’s much read and discussed book came out, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality [1980], this geezer remembers any number of evangelicals responses to Boswell, all before the age of the Internet, peppered with important historical and exegetical arguments about biblical teaching on homosexuality.)

I may be as naive as I am old, but I do not agree with Trueman’s assessment that opposition to gay marriage will become synonymous with white supremacy and other crack pot ideas from the perspective of the cultural mainstream. At a deep level, Americans identify with the underdog. Homosexuals have used this to gain acceptance, even though people with the kind of access they appear to have to cultural elites are generally not eligible for the category of the oppressed.

Minority groups in the United States do oppose homosexuality and they do so without any noticeable threat. For instance, Muslims are not keen on gay marriage, nor are orthodox Jews, or African-American Protestants for that matter. And yet, the thought of the state threatening these groups with penalties for their stances on homosexuality seems far-fetched. If Andrew Sullivan were to come to a place in policy debates where he wound up on the other side of a dispute with Jesse Jackson, I bet Sullivan would have enough sense not to charge Jackson with bigotry – something that rarely sticks on minorities. And if Jackson were a spokesman for African-American ministers opposed to homosexual marriage, I doubt he would be banned from the Sunday morning talk shows for doing so. I could actually see lots of bookings (though I wouldn’t be at home to watch them).

The problem for evangelicals is that they are the minority who thinks like a majority. It would be one thing to look at the numbers, recognize you don’t have the votes, and look for ways to protect your own sideline institutions. This was the approach to public life in the United States by Roman Catholics and they found their political outlet in the multi-cultural Democratic Party. But evangelicals have readily identified as the mainstream tradition in the United States, with claims about the nation’s Christian founding, and an accompanying political theology that says God loves republics and freedom. Evangelicals have also tended to approve of the Republican Party’s efforts to impose cultural uniformity on the nation. In which case, evangelicals may like to think that they are a minority only seeking toleration for themselves what other minority groups want (or have). But they have a uniformity-by-majority disposition that seeks to establish their norms as those of the nation.

This is the main reason for quick and ready dismissals of evangelicals as bigoted and intolerant, not their actual views or practices on homosexuality. Gay marriage is an emblem of a deeper cultural divide that prevents white conservative Protestants from embracing some form of cultural diversity. If they could concede ground to homosexuals (I don’t know if it should be civil marriage), they might be able to gain concessions for their own churches, schools, and families. But for the better part of 200 years, evangelicals have approached public life as a zero-sum game.

Scott Clark is sensitive to the particular consequences that gay marriage would have for the entire culture, and not for a certain sector of it, and argues plausibly for considering the social consequences of gay marriage. Scott is particularly concerned about the fallout for the family:

By analogy it is not possible to re-define the fundamental units of society without a cost. Consider any society. Assuming a certain degree of natural liberty and mobility, if people are living together in a defined space, those people have consented voluntarily to live together. They have made a society. What is the basic unit of that society? It cannot be the isolated individual if only because no mere individual is capable of forming a society or of perpetuating a society. There must be a basic social unit. Historically that social unit has been understood to be a heterosexual family, a father, mother, a grandfather, a grandmother and their children and grandchildren because it is grounded in the nature of things.

I tend to agree with this but sense it is almost impossible to use this line of reasoning in a plausible way. For forty years our society has been experimenting with a host of new social forms. Some of those were surely welcome – racial integration, and redefining women’s roles. But the impetus to overturn unwanted hierarchies did not leave much room for recognizing the value of hierarchy more generally and the way that social order depends upon other kinds of order. And so along came sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll as the baby boomers’ favorite idioms for resisting cultural and moral conventions.

Evangelicals may have taken longer and been more selective in appropriating the cultural shifts of the 1960s and 1970s, but when it came to worship and sacred song they did so with abandon. Granted, it is a leap even to suggest – let alone argue – that Praise and Worship worship was a step on the path to gay marriage. But if Christian rock did to religious conventions what rock did to cultural conventions, it is possible to wonder where the bending of conventions ultimately leads.

Scott points in the direction of his observation when he writes of the generational differences on opposition to homosexuality. The younger generation has:

been raised in a culture which not only tolerates homosexuality but celebrates it. Consider the contrast between the way homosexuality was regarded in popular culture in the first half of the 20th century. Liberace was openly effeminate and made only the thinnest of attempts to protest his heterosexuality. Homosexual movie stars regularly went out of their way to create a heterosexual image and especially when it was contrary to fact. Some movie studios had a policy requiring single male actors (e.g., Jimmy Stewart) to visit a studio-run bordello in order to demonstrate their heterosexuality.

In the second half of the 20th century the old conventions, which has lost their grounding in nature and creational law, were deconstructed. . . . All of this took decades but it happened. It’s a real change of culture, of attitude, of stance, of definition of what constitutes acceptable social and sexual behavior and norms.

If Scott is right, and I think he is about the gradual ways in which the culture has changed since 1960, then evangelicals may want to rethink why it is that their disregard for what the created order reveals as appropriate for Christian worship is okay but homosexual disregard for the created order of sexual reproduction is not. It could be that Trueman’s point about bigotry has a point: can you really sing Christian rock in praise of God and oppose gay marriage with a straight face?

Two-Kingdom Tuesday: James Jordan for President (of the U.S.A.)

Published on by D. G. Hart30 Comments

A constant them in objections to two-kingdom teaching is that it fails to follow the Reformers even while claiming their imprimatur. As the Rabbi Brets, the Baylys, and the Wilsonians like to remind us, the magisterial reformation was just that – a reformation conducted by magistrates, some of whom were the ministers who were themselves agents of the state. The city council of Geneva called John Calvin to be pastor. So, two-kingdom theology must be wrong because it would have never put Calvin in Geneva.

Seldom conceded in this argument is that 2k critics are also a long way from the Reformers. To be consistent with the joys of a magisterial reformation, the critics should be calling for President Obama and Governor Rendell, among others, to reform the churches, call the right ministers, approve the proper liturgies, establish the right forms of church government. Well, the problem here is that Obama might appoint Jeremiah Wright to be his Archbishop Laud. Doh (I)!

That possibility should be a reminder that state-run churches have never preserved Reformed Protestantism (or any religion, for that matter). Even when the covenants with the king were long and exacting, the magistrates only made life more difficult for the good guys in the church and regularly backed the bad guys. This is why the good guys in church history, from Calvin, to the Contra-Remonstrants, to the Covenanters, to the PCUSA, to the Free Church of Scotland, wanted autonomy of the church from state-control in order to govern the church properly (and they argued, biblically).

So if anti-2kers want to be as consistent in their doing as they think they are in their saying, they need to persuade James Jordan, the Godfather of things Federal Vision, to run for the presidency. I assume he will need to run on a political platform very much contrary to the policies and laws that guided Geneva’s magistrates in their oversight of a reformed church. Small government, reduced taxes, vouchers for religious schools, maybe even reduction of the U.S.’s superpower footprint could Jordan’s candidacy off the runway. And then once in office, Jordan can implement the suppression of heresy, the closing of synagogues, mosques, and cathedrals, and the prohibition of usury. Politicians lie through their teeth all the time on the campaign trail. What would be the problem with one more? Wait a minute. Jordan believes in the law. Doh (II)!

The Original Blended Worship?

Published on by D. G. Hart4 Comments

With less division [than over church government], the Westminster Assembly also drew up an order or worship and a confession of faith. The Directory for Public Worship, accepted by the Parliaments of England and Scotland alike in 1645, carved a middle ground between the Presbyterian desire for a fixed liturgy and Independent attachment to extemporary prayer by specifying the order of services but merely suggesting sample prayers. Distilling the practices of the “best Reformed churches” and adding a dash of English Sabbatarianism, it prescribed the discontinuation of all “festival days, vulgarly called Holy Dayes,” instituted a simple seated communion, and called for the “Lord’s Day” to be given over entirely to such acts of piety, charity, and mercy as singing psalms, repeating sermons in family groups, visiting the sick, and relieving the poor. No ceremonies whatsoever were to accompany funerals, and the pouring or sprinkling of water on the newborn was the sole approved ritual action of baptism, which could be performed only by a minister at a regularly scheduled worship service. (Philip Benedict, Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed, p. 401)

If only today’s blends were as good.

Where's Waldo (Two Days After) Wednesday: WSC on Union

Published on by D. G. Hart8 Comments

Historically Reformed theologians have recognized that union with Christ is not merely one aspect of the order of salvation but is the hub from which the spokes are drawn. One can find such conclusions in the theology of Reformed luminaries such as John Owen, Herman Witsius, and Thomas Boston, to name a few. That union undergirds the whole of the order of salvation is evident from Paul’s book-end statements that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world and that only those who are in Christ will be raised from the dead and clothed in immortality. In fact, we may say that there are three phases of our union with Christ, the predestinarian “in Christ,” the redemptive-historical “in Christ,” the union involved in the once-for-all accomplishment of salvation, and the applicatory “in Christ,” which is the union in the actual possession or application of salvation. These three phases refer not to different unions but rather to different aspects of the same union.

Given these conclusions, it is no wonder that the Westminster Larger Catechism states that justification, adoption, sanctification, and whatever other benefits flow from Christ to the believer manifest the believer’s union with him (Q/A 69). When we see that our being found “in Christ” underlies the whole order of salvation, including the legal portions, such as justification and adoption, hopefully we begin to see how the Reformed understanding of the relationship between justification and union are not in any way at odds or redundant. From here, we can identify three concepts that we must understand to have a proper understanding of the relationship between union with Christ and justification: (1) that the legal aspects of our redemption are relational; (2) justification is the legal aspect of our union with Christ; and (3) that justification is the ground of our sanctification.

Justification and Union with Christ: The Legal Is Relational

We should make two important observations concerning the relationship between justification and union with Christ. First, there is the unchecked assumption that just because justification is legal in character therefore means that it is not relational. For some unknown reason, whether in the theology of nineteenth-century liberalism or contemporary expressions from Lusk, for example, both think that the so-called legal and relational are incompatible. Yet, we must understand that there are such things as legal relationships. Or, in terms of our redemption, there are legal aspects of our relationship with God. For example, Paul tells us that we have received “the Spirit of adoption as sons” (Rom. 8:15; cf. Gal. 4:5; Eph. 1:5). Here is a clear instance where we see the wedding of the so-called legal and relational categories-adoption is a legal term but is also bound with it is the idea of sonship, a relational term. However, rather than see adoption as legal and sonship as relational, we should understand that the legal and filial are both relational. (John Fesko, “Toward A More Perfect Union?” Modern Reformation)

Fesko's Forensic Friday

Published on by D. G. Hart1 Comment

Why does Paul insist upon the imputed active obedience of Christ in our justification? Why is this necessary aside from the fact that the Scriptures teach its necessity? The answer lies in the nature of our justification. We must recognize that the ground of our justification is not our sanctification, or the transformative aspect of our union with Christ. To base our justification in our sanctification is to change the judicial ground from the work of Christ to the work of the believer. The good works of the believer, even those that are the result of the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, are at the end of the day imperfect. . . .

It is only the obedience of Christ, therefore, that can be the ground of our justification, not only the obedience that he offered in his vicarious suffering throughout his entire earthly ministry, his passive obedience, but also his perfect law-keeping that he offered on our behalf to his Father, his active obedience.

In terms of union with Christ and justification, Berkhof therefore explains that “justification is always a declaration of God, not on the basis of an existing condition, but on that of a gracious imputation-a declaration which is not in harmony with the existing condition of the sinner. The judicial ground for all the special grace which we receive lies in the fact that the righteousness of Christ is freely imputed to us.” What we must realize, then, is that the ground of our redemption is the work of Christ; correlatively, we should also recognize that the ground of our sanctification is our justification. In other words, apart from the legal-forensic work of Christ, received by imputation through faith, there is no transformative work of the Holy Spirit. Or, using the title of John Murray’s famous book, apart from redemption accomplished, there can be no redemption applied (see WCF 11.3; Larger Catechism, Q/A 70). (John Fesko, “Toward A More Perfect Union?” Modern Reformation)

Thanks to Heidelblog

Anne Rice Quits Christianity and Endorses Bret McAtee

Published on by D. G. Hart9 Comments

I feel somewhat responsible for Ms. Rice’s recent deconversion. At the risk of name dropping, let me explain. Back in 2007 during the Democratic primaries Rice wrote a very positive endorsement of my radically 2k book, A Secular Faith: Why Christianity Favors the Separation of Church and State. In that same post at her blog, Rice also endorsed Hilary Clinton. Those worried about the 2k infection could plausibly conclude that Hart and Clinton are in the same ballpark of a liberal and secular version of the United States and of Christianity. Rice was, at the time, recently out of the closet about her recovery of her Roman Catholic upbringing.

In the summer of 2007 she wrote:

To my readers:
Some time ago, I made an effort to remove from this website all political statements made by me in the past. Many of these statements were incomplete statements, and many were dated. And a good many of the emails I received about these statements indicated that they were confusing to my newer Christian readers. I felt, when I removed the material, that I was doing what was best for my personal vocation — which is, to write books for Jesus Christ.

My vocation at this time remains unchanged. I am committed to writing books for the Lord, and those books right now, are books about His life on Earth as God and Man. I hope my books will reach all Christians, regardless of denomination or background. This has become my life.

However, I have come to feel that my Christian conscience requires of me a particular political statement at this time.

I hope you will read this statement in a soft voice. It is meant to be spoken in a soft voice.

Let me say first of all that I am devoutly committed to the separation of church and state in America. I believe that the separation of church and state has been good for all Christians in this country, and particularly good for Catholics who had a difficult time gaining acceptance as Americans before the presidential election of John F. Kennedy. The best book I can recommend right now on the separation of church and state is A SECULAR FAITH, Why Christianity Favors The Separation of Church and State, by Darryl Hart. However there are many other good books on the subject.

Believing as I do that church and state should remain separate, I also believe that when one enters the voting booth, church and state become one for the voter. The voter must vote her conscience. He or she must vote for the party and candidate who best reflect all that the voter deeply believes. Conscience requires the Christian to vote as a Christian. Commitment to Christ is by its very nature absolute.

My commitment and my vote, therefore, must reflect my deepest Christian convictions; and for me these convictions are based on the teachings of Christ in the Four Gospels. . . .

To summarize, I believe in voting, I believe in voting for one of the two major parties, and I believe my vote must reflect my Christian beliefs.

Bearing all this in mind, I want to say quietly that as of this date, I am a Democrat, and that I support Hillary Clinton for President of the United States.

Though I deeply respect those who disagree with me, I believe, for a variety of reasons, that the Democratic Party best reflects the values I hold based on the Gospels. Those values are most intensely expressed for me in the Gospel of Matthew, but they are expressed in all the gospels. Those values involve feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, visiting those in prison, and above all, loving one’s neighbors and loving one’s enemies. A great deal more could be said on this subject, but I feel that this is enough.

I want to add here that I am Pro-Life. I believe in the sanctity of the life of the unborn. Deeply respecting those who disagree with me, I feel that if we are to find a solution to the horror of abortion, it will be through the Democratic Party. . . .

I repeat: I am a Christian; I am a Democrat. I support Hillary Clinton for President of the United States.

If I receive emails on this issue, I will do my best to answer them.

Anne Rice
August 10, 2007

I tend to think that Rice missed the point of A Secular Faith, that what is more important when entering the voting booth is U.S. law and policy, not which party best embodies the gospel. But when a popular author endorses your book, to object is to look ungrateful. (Plus, I don’t have Anne’s digits.)

Now she says that she is dropping her Christian identity:

I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else. . . .

In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.

If Ms. Rice had been able to read Dave VanDrunen’s new book on two-kingdom theology she might have worked out better her commitment to the separation of church and state and belief in the Bible. I confess, I did not give her enough help in A Secular Faith.

But if Rice supported Hilary Clinton for Christian reasons, then her renunciation of the church must also mean a switch in politics. That raises the possibility of voting for Republicans and maybe even endorsing Bret McAtee if he decides to run for the Senate again. But that doesn’t make sense because Bret is anti-gay rights. I’m confused.

At least I have a political theology to help with the confusion – you look to the state for law and to the church for gospel; if you look the wrong way, you’re sure to get hit in the crossfire.

Two Kingdom Tuesday: Machen Was All Wet

Published on by D. G. Hart10 Comments

The resolution endorsing the Eighteenth Amendment or the Volstead Act was introduced to the Presbytery of New Brunswick at the very end of the meting on April 13, 1926. The attendance, which had been large during the early part of the session, had dwindled until only a very few persons were present – y estimate would be ten or twelve, exclusive of the officers, though I believe someone else estimates the number at about five. Under these conditions, the resolution was put to a viva voce vote. I voted “No”; but I did not speak to the motion or in any way ask that my vote should be recorded. . . .

It is a misrepresentation to say that by this vote I expressed any opinion on the merits of the Eighteenth Amendment or the Volstead Act – and still less on the general question of Prohibition. On the contrary, my vote was directed against a policy which places the church in its corporate capacity, as distinguished from the activities of its members, on record with regard to such political questions. And I also thought it improper for so small a group of men as were then in attendance to attempt to express the attitude of a court of the church with regard to such an important question. . . .

Such are the facts about my vote. I desire now to say one or two things about my attitude regarding the issues involved.

In the first place, no one has a greater horror of the evils of drunkenness than I or a greater detestation of any corrupt traffic which has sought to make profit out of this terrible sin. It is clearly the duty of the church to combat this evil

With regard to the exact form, however, in which the power of civil government is to be used in this battle, there may be different of opinion. Zeal for temperance, for example, would hardly justify an order that all drunkards should be summarily butchered. The end in that case would not justify the means. Some men hold that the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act are not a wise method of dealing with the problem of intemperance, and that indeed those measures, in the effort to accomplish moral good, are really causing moral harm. I am not expressing any opinion on this question now, and did not do so by my vote in the Presbytery of New Brunswick. But I do maintain that those who hold the view that I have just mentioned have a perfect right to their opinion, so far as the law of our church is concerned, and should not be coerced in any way by ecclesiastical authority. The church has a right to exercise discipline where authority for condemnation of an act can be found in Scripture, but it has no such right in other cases. And certainly Scripture authority cannot be found in the particular matter of the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act.

Moreover, the church, I hold, ought to refrain from entering, in its corporate capacity, into the political field. Chapter XXXI, Article iv, of the Confession of Faith reads as follows:

Synods and councils are to handle, or conclude nothing, but that which is ecclesiastical: and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth, unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary; or, by way of advice, for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate.

This section, I think, established a very great principle which was violated by the Presbyter of New Brunswick. . . .

In making of itself, moreover, in so many instances primarily an agency of law enforcement, and thus engaging in the duties of the police, the church, I am constrained to think, is in danger of losing sight of its proper function, which is that of bringing to bear upon human soul the sweet and gracious influences of the gospel. Important indeed are the function of the police, and members of the church, in their capacity as citizens, should aid by every proper means within their power in securing the discharge of those functions. But the duty of the church in its corporate capacity is of quite a different nature. (J. Gresham Machen, “Statement on the Eighteenth Amendment”)

To Ask and Tell, or Not to Ask and Tell: This is the Contradiction

Published on by D. G. Hart41 Comments

Rabbi Bret is baaaaaaack from vacation (apparently) and he didn’t waste anytime piling on his favorite virus – the infectious disease known as Radical 2K. He reports that the URCNA Synod has decided to send a letter to the U.S. Armed Services official, drafted by the Presbyterian and Reformed Joint Commission on Chaplains and Miltary Personnel (PRJC), that petitions the Pentagon to to hold the line on the current military policy – “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

In the current state of affairs, the various branches of the military do not inquire about the sexual orientation of personnel. But if the Obama administration has its way, “don’t ask, don’t tell” will cease and instead gays and lesbians will be able to come out of the closet. According to the PJRC letter, such a change of policy might force conservative Protestant chaplains to resign because their teaching and preaching of God’s word, especially on homosexuality, will open them to the charge of discrimination. The new policy might even force chaplains those passages in Scripture where God condemns homosexuality.

Bret interprets this URCNA decision as a major smack down of two-kingdom theology.

Despite the ongoing assault against Biblical Christianity from Westminster West Seminary and it’s specious Radical Two Kingdom Theology the URCNA rightly voted to weigh in on a “common realm” issue with an almost unanimous vote to resist, by way of appeal, the US Military’s overturning of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Apparently the Synodical body was not persuaded by the R2Kt ratiocination and argumentation that the Church has no business speaking beyond the realm of the Church. With this vote there can be no doubt that the URCNA has implicitly rejected, root and branch, the foreign theology now commonly referred to as “R2K.”

One would have thought that after a well-deserved break from pastoral duties and service at Synod the good rabbi would not be so quick to hyperventilate about the meaning of this news. I can think of any number of better indications than this letter that the URC has repudiated 2k. Do the formation of a study committee or an actual report with recommendations against 2k come to mind? But if this gets Bret through the night without having to use his inhaler, so be it.

At the same time, Bret may want to regroup and consider that the policy that PRC now favors – “don’t ask, don’t tell” – was precisely the one they opposed back when President Clinton introduced it during his first weeks in office. Maybe Bret was running for Senate or doing something time consuming like that, but Reformed communions like the OPC and PCA both sent letters in 1993 informing the president of the Bible’s teaching about homosexuality. These communications were supposed to provide the official cover for Reformed and Presbyterian chaplains whose consciences might be violated by openly gay soldiers and officers taking up duties under their charge. In a contest between church and state, supposedly, the chaplains could now appeal to the explicit teaching of their own communions.

What is important to remember, though, is that these letters, also hatched by the Presbyterian and Reformed chaplains, came in reaction to the policy that the PRJC now supports. In which case, in the name of biblical Christianity, the PRJC has reversed course and determined that “don’t ask, don’t tell” is just fine and that Obama will damage the military and the nation if he tinkers with allowing gays now in the closet, to come out.

So the question for Bret and supporters of the PRJC is this: is this what healthy 1k looks like? Can the church really change its mind about the policies the Bible requires? Or is it simply the case that the Bible opposes whatever a Democratic president proposes? (Could a GOP Study Bible be in the offing?)

Even more troubling is the propensity for the chaplains from Reformed communions to manifest their opposition to homosexuality to the exclusion of other sins that the Bible also condemns. I wonder why PRJC doesn’t instruct the president about the idolatry of Mormon worship or the blasphemy of the Roman Catholic Mass? Surely there are Mormons and Roman Catholics out of the closet in the military. Some of them are likely chaplains. Does PRJC think that Clinton and Obama understand the regulative principle of worship but need help with the seventh commandment? Or is it that PRJC thinks sexual sins are more eggregious than false worship?

It could be a tough call since the Westminster Standards allow that not all sins are equally offensive. But if sexual sins are more objectionable than liturgical infidelity (you’d have trouble proving that from Israel’s experience), then why not go after porn in the military, or divorce, or adultery among heteros? I personally don’t buy the logic – on display in spades in American Beauty – that the biggest homophobes are really gay. But if PRJC wanted to avoid that sort of canard from the Hollywood left, why not send a letter or two to the president about stealing and lying?

Mind you, I understand at least some of the difficulties that gay rights create for our society and the Armed Services. Rabbi Bret is well within his duties as a citizen to register his concerns. But I sure wish he’d get his facts straight (no pun intended) about biblical teaching and the PRJC’s flip-flop on don’t ask, don’t tell.

Why I Love MY Communion (It's All About ME AGAIN!)

Published on by D. G. Hart6 Comments

You inherit odd habits when you grow up in a fundamentalist Baptist home (the advantages should not be minimized either). In my case, my parents were devoted listeners to Christian radio, a practice that I keep alive as part of my Sabbath routine. Instead of listening about balls and babes on sports-talk radio while brewing coffee, on Sundays I turn on the local Christian station (and actually hear, depending on the hour, Hugh Hewitt summarize the weeks headlines, which is not what I want to hear when I’m preparing to enter the heavenlies).

Yesterday, I heard Cliff Barrows and his sidekick on the Hour of Decision make available Charles Sheldon’s In His Steps, the original source for the “What-Would-Jesus-Do” craze of fifteen years or so ago. For donations of – I can’t remember the level – contributors would receive a copy of Sheldon’s novel. What the folks at the BGEA failed to mention was that Sheldon was a Social Gospeler and a proto-liberal Congregationalist minister. I guess it would take too much time away from soul-winning to acquire the discernment necessary for refusing to promote Sheldon’s novel. But then again, if you are committed to spreading the good news of Jesus Christ you might want to warn people away from proclamations, no matter how much cloaked in the aura of Jesus, that were very influential in turning the mainline Protestant churches in the United States away from the very good news of Jesus Christ.

While I was listening to the radio promo, I couldn’t help but think of a book that the OPC is featuring as part of its effort to educate its members. Stuart Robinson is not nearly as popular as Sheldon, though without the WWJD bracelets Sheldon may not be much of a celebrity either. But the Louisville Presbyterian pastor wrote one of the best books on Presbyterian ecclesiology and he did so from a redemptive historical perspective even before Geerhardus Vos was a glint in his father’s eye. In 1858, four years before Vos’ birth, Robinson wrote The Church of God As An Essential Element of the Gospel, a book that combines two-kingdom, spirituality of the church, and jure divino Presbyterianism in a suprisingly compact and potent combination. To the OPC’s credit, its Committee on Christian Education has reprinted the book with a helpful introduction by pastor, A. Craig Troxel, and is selling it in hard cover for modest price.

I know many evangelicals think that conservative Reformed Protestant are mean, critical, and belong to denominations that do a lot of things wrong. But do these not so winsome and complaining evangelicals ever factor in the bad things that parachurch organizations do in the name of the gospel? This is not a rhetorical question.