Mike Horton is More Fun Than Mark Dever (though Mark has his moments)

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Justin Taylor made me do it.

He linked to Ray Ortlund’s blog from a couple days ago at the Gospel Coalition – calling it a “classic” in which the he warns TR’s (i.e., Truly Reformed) about the danger of falling into the Judaizer trap. Ortlund writes:

The Judaizers in Galatia did not see their distinctive – the rite of circumcision – as problematic. They could claim biblical authority for it in Genesis 17 and the Abrahamic covenant. But their distinctive functioned as an addition to the all-sufficiency of Jesus himself. Today the flash point is not circumcision. It can be Reformed theology. But no matter how well argued our position is biblically, if it functions in our hearts as an addition to Jesus, it ends up as a form of legalistic divisiveness.

This is truly an amazing assertion by the Nashville pastor. Even though Reformed folks think they are following Paul in their teaching and ministry (let’s not forget the Jerusalem Council or the pastoral epistles which say something about presbyterian polity), they become Judaizers by following Paul and insisting that the church heed everything Christ commanded – from theology to worship and polity. I feel like I am in a Coen Brothers movie where up is down, white is black, and rodents are felines.

Ortlund’s post is standard fare among evangelicals who look for a lowest-common-denominator approach to Christian unity and so regard sticklers for doctrine and practice – like the Reformed – as sticks in the mud and unloving sectarians to boot. (Ortlund fails to remark that Baptists, Pentecostals, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Lutherans, who insist on the correctness of their distinct teachings and practices, are also would-be Judaizers. Rather than acknowledge that differences exist within the church because different parts of the visible church interpret the Bible differently, Ortlund, like many a pietist before him, disregards actual differences and chalks up resistance to unity as a lack of love – for both Christ and for other Christians. As the Church Lady might say, “isn’t that charitable?”

But the neat trick that Ortlund adds to this standard kvetch about Reformed particularists is a claim about the psychology and sociology of being Reformed. He comments on Gal 4:17 – “They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them” – in the following paraphrase:

“When Christians, whatever the label or badge or shibboleth, start pressuring you to come into line with their distinctive, you know something’s wrong. They want to enhance their own significance by your conformity to them: ‘See? We’re better. We’re superior. People are moving our way. They are becoming like us. We’re the buzz.’”

Ortlund adds, “What is this, but deep emotional emptiness medicating itself by relational manipulation? This is not about Christ. This is about Self.”

Isn’t that charitable, indeed.

Is it so hard to imagine that other people with whom we disagree may actually have good reasons for what they hold, and that they may actually be trying to honor, serve, and love the Lord and his church? Apparently, Ortlund would rather speculate on motives and psychology.

Ortlund concludes with this plea to Reformed Protestants:

My Reformed friend, can you move among other Christian groups and really enjoy them? Do you admire them? Even if you disagree with them in some ways, do you learn from them? What is the emotional tilt of your heart – toward them or away from them? If your Reformed theology has morphed functionally into Galatian sociology, the remedy is not to abandon your Reformed theology. The remedy is to take your Reformed theology to a deeper level. Let it reduce you to Jesus only. Let it humble you. Let this gracious doctrine make you a fun person to be around. The proof that we are Reformed will be all the wonderful Christians we discover around us who are not Reformed. Amazing people. Heroic people. Blood-bought people. People with whom we are eternally one – in Christ alone.

Brother Ray, I have been around the non-Reformed and they are not nearly as much fun as Reformed folks are. As much as I do enjoy Mark Dever’s company (sorry for name-dropping), I refuse to smoke a cigar or drink a Gin & Tonic in his company, not because I find him unworthy of such camaraderie but because I know my smoking or imbibing could get Mark in trouble. Baptists still bulk large in the prohibitionist camp and for that reason the merriment supplied by leisurely conversation over a pipe or a pint (better with both) is off limits to many of the Christian groups that Ortlund wants me to hang out with and have fun.

This may seem like a trivial point but it actually bears much more on the passage to which Ortlund appeals than it might seem at first. Paul’s battle with the Judaizers was over the misapplication of Scripture. In the Judaizers’ hands formerly God-made rules had become man-made norms because the work of Christ introduced freedom from the old covenant norms. In other words, the Judaizers were effectively substituting man-made rules for being Christian than the gospel that Paul was preaching. The Judaizers were denying Christian liberty in the way that contemporary believers do when they conclude that smoking or drinking is sin with (erroneous) appeals to Scripture. Without a proper biblical justification for their prohibitions they wind up enslaving Christians and thus burden the very gospel that Paul was out to protect among the Galatians.

In my own knowledge of church history, it is the Reformed (and other confessional Protestants) who understand much better than the “Jesus only” evangelicals the difference between the word of God and the words of men. And it is this difference that makes Reformed Protestants (with apologies to my friend, Mark Dever) more fun.

If Reformed Needs To Be Distinguished from Puritan, Why Not Presbyterian?

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Some historians of seventeenth-century British Protestantism are dismissive of attempts to distinguish between Puritans and Presbyterians. Part of the problem, of course, involves definitions and categories. When it comes to politics, differences between Presbyterians and Puritans do not become clear until the 1650s with the regime of Oliver Cromwell since Puritans in Parliament joined forces with Presbyterians to do battle with the Stuart monarchy partly on the basis of the Solemn League and Covenant. When it comes to religion, Puritans and Presbyterians shared an intense and introspective piety that again makes differentiating them seemingly pointless.

I was surprised to read, then, in his treatment of John Owen Carl Trueman’s distinction between Puritan and Reformed. On the one hand, he argues that Puritan, at least with reference to Owen, is an unhelpful category.

First, . . . there is little consensus on exactly what constitutes a Puritan, let alone the reification of that elusive essence in the phenomenon known as Puritanism. Second, whatever else Puritanism is, it is fairly minimalist in terms of theological content – if John Milton, the quasi-Arian counts as a Puritan, for example, we can scarcely include even that most basic of Christian distinctives, the doctrine of the Trinity, in our definition. Third, Puritanism has, on the whole, far too parochial a range to allow us to see the full context of Owen’s thinking. . . . Thus, the use of a category like “Puritanism,” which brings with it all manner of narrowly parochial connotations, really needs to be deployed very carefully and in very specific contexts if it is to be at all helpful in our understanding of [Owen’s] thought.

The category that Trueman prefers to apply to Owen is Reformed Orthodoxy since it “is at once both more easily defined and less limiting that the category of Puritanism.” By Reformed Orthodoxy Trueman means:

. . . the tradition of Protestant thought which found its creedal expression on the continent in such documents, as, among others, the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism and the Canons of Dort, and in Britain in the Westminster Assembly’s Confession of Faith and Larger and Shorter Catechisms. Historically speaking, the immediate roots of this tradition are to be found in the work of Reformers such as Huldrych Zwingli, Johannes Oecolampadius, Martin Bucer and, a generation later, such men as John Calvin, Heinrich Bullinger, Peter Martyr and Pierre Viret. (Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man, pp. 6-7)

This is helpful, but it does raise a couple questions. First, since the Parliament that called the Westminster Assembly was dominated by Puritans, is it so easy to distinguish the Puritanism of Parliament from the Reformed orthodoxy of the Westminster Assembly, especially since Puritans were not in short supply at the Assembly?

The other questions concerns the original oldlife effort to distinguish Presbyterianism from Puritanism. If Presbyterians adopted the Westminster Standards as their church’s confession, then that would appear, following Trueman, to make them not Puritan but part of Reformed Orthodoxy. In which case, if Puritanism lacks substantial theological content and is not synonymous with the work of the Westminster Assembly, is distinguishing Presbyterianism from Puritanism really so peculiar?

Forensic Friday: Warfield (the Lutheran?) On Lutheran Theology

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There is no evidence presented here that the New Testament represents sanctification as received immediately by faith. In point of fact there is no direct statement to that effect in the New Testament. It is to Jellinghaus’* credit that he does not adduce for it either Acts xv.9 or xxvi.18, which are often made to do duty in this sense. His strong conviction that sanctification is obtained directly and immediately by faith is a product not of his Scriptural studies, but of his “mediating theology.” According to that theology, when we receive Christ by faith we receive in Him all that He is to us at once; all the benefits which we receive in Him are conceived as received immediately and directly by the faith through which we are united with Him and become sharers in all that He is. Justification and sanctification, for example, are thought of as parallel products of faith. This is not, however, the New Testament representation. According to its teaching, sanctification is not related to faith directly and immediately, so that in believing in Jesus we receive both justification and sanctification as parallel products of our faith; or either the one or the other, according as our faith is directed to the one or the other. Sanctification is related directly not to faith but to justification; and as faith is the instrumental cause of justification, so is justification the instrumental cause of sanctification. The vinculum which binds justification and sanctification together is not that they are both effects of faith – so that he who believes must have both – because faith is the prius of both alike. Nor is it even that both are obtained in Christ, so that he who has Christ, who is made to us both righteousness and sanctification, must have both because Christ is the common source of both. It is true that he who has faith has and must have both; and it is true that he who has Christ has and must have both. But they do not come out of faith or from Christ in the same way. Justification comes through faith; sanctification through justification, and only mediately, through justification, through faith. So that the order is invariable, faith, justification, sanctification; not arbitrarily, but in the nature of the case. (B. B. Warfield, “The German Higher Life Movement,” in Perfectionism, vol. 1, pp. 362-363)

As one friend said after reading this, “Wow”!

*Theodore Jellinghaus was a German Lutheran missionary to India, and later a Lutheran pastor in the vicinity of Potsdam.

If George Washington Is Orthodox, What About Barack Obama?

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Glenn Beck and Peter Lillback have teamed up again to keep the sacred fire of a civil religion burning, a strange fire that appeals to both Republican Mormons and Republican Presbyterians. Soon after his appearance on the Glenn Beck show, Lillback posted an article for the host’s website on whether or not the founders were religious. (Lillback is responding to a post at Media Matters that contends that Lillback has distorted Washington’s views.)

To make his case, the president of Westminster (Philadelphia), much like he did in his book on Washington, quotes extensively from America’s first president and other founding era worthies. Here are a few of the proof texts for the importance of religion to the original United States government.

Lillback cites a 1776 resolution from the Continental Congress that called for a national fast:

In times of impending calamity and distress; when the liberties of America are imminently endangered by the secret machinations and open assaults of an insidious and vindictive administration, it becomes the indispensable duty of these hitherto free and happy colonies, with true penitence of heart, and the most reverent devotion, publickly to acknowledge the over ruling providence of God; to confess and deplore our offences against him; and to supplicate his interposition for averting the threatened danger, and prospering our strenuous efforts in the cause of freedom, virtue, and posterity.

Lillback also offers evidence from Ben Franklin to support the idea that the founders believed in the power of prayer:

In the beginning of the Contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the Divine protection – Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor.

To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we image we no longer need His assistance?

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured sir, in the Sacred Writings that ‘except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it (Ps. 127:1).’ I firmly believe this, and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builder of Babel. We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. I therefore beg leave to move that, henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessing on our deliberation be held in this assembly every morning. . .and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.

Where does all of this material lead? The point of this exercise, at least for Glenn Beck’s audience is to point out bias in both the media and academy against the idea that religion was important to George Washington and company. Lillback writes: “if truth matters to the media, and it must if Media is to really Matter, then the truth of George Washington’s words must really matter as well” He adds that “it is unmistakably clear for those who will read the original sources, and not blindly rely on the unsubstantiated historical revisionism that so often passes as scholarship today, that faith mattered greatly to our Founders.”

Is it just me or does Lillback raise the stakes of truth and impartiality in ways that may be a tad uncomfortable for himself? After all, can the media really be faulted for following the work of historians who have taught and written about eighteenth-century British politics instead of a Presbyterian parson whose own training was in sixteenth-century theology? (By the way, for an interesting, civil, educational, and religiously sympathetic discussion of the American founding, readers should go to American Creation.) Of course, Lillback has a 1,200-plus page book behind his claim. But doesn’t it seem a tad biased for this book to be published by Lillback’s own book imprint? So if Lillback wants to avoid the error of media bias or historical revisionism, then shouldn’t he found an outlet for his historical scholarship a few steps removed from his own editorial control?

This problem of bias becomes even trickier when you consider that Barack Obama has spoken favorably about Christianity and his own faith in ways even more Christo-centric than Washington. Recall, for instance, the current president’s words at the White House Easter prayer breakfast. (For the entire speech, go here.)

Of all the stories passed down through the gospels, this one in particular speaks to me during this season. And I think of hanging — watching Christ hang from the cross, enduring the final seconds of His passion. He summoned what remained of His strength to utter a few last words before He breathed His last breath.

“Father,” He said, “into your hands I commit my spirit.” Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. These words were spoken by our Lord and Savior, but they can just as truly be spoken by every one of us here today. Their meaning can just as truly be lived out by all of God’s children.

So, on this day, let us commit our spirit to the pursuit of a life that is true, to act justly and to love mercy and walk humbly with the Lord. And when we falter, as we will, let redemption — through commitment and through perseverance and through faith — be our abiding hope and fervent prayer.

If you were as inclined to read Washington’s generic affirmations of providence as charitably as Lillback does, wouldn’t you also be inclined to view Obama as an evangelical Christian? Well, the reply might be, “Obama tolerated Jeremiah Wright and so that indicates the flaws in his devotion.” But Washington’s associations were not always so clean or holy. As the folks over at American Creation have explored, Washington made favorable comments about the Universalists. One could also point out that Washington was a Freemason. So it’s not as if Washington’s faith is squeaky clean compared to Obama’s.

In which case, the reason why Washington gets an orthodox grade and Obama fails has more to do with politics than religion. Why a Federalist is more attractive to Republicans than a Democrat is not entirely obvious since the political antagonisms that divided Federalists from Democratic-Republicans during 1790s about how to be a republic free from European political pressures are a long way from issues that divide today’s Republicans and Democrats over how best to be a superpower – an entity that the founders would hardly recognize. I for one would prefer Washington’s politics to the current convictions that dominate the city named after him. But Lillback’s point is not supposed to be about politics. It’s supposed to be about taking religion seriously. So then shouldn’t we take Obama’s religion seriously? And shouldn’t Obama’s assertions indicate that the bias of secular, liberal America is not nearly as partial as Lillback and Beck assume? Or that there is plenty of bias to go round?

But if Lillback’s point is finally about the need for the media and academy to take religion seriously, perhaps he could have pointed the way by not making too much of the civil religion that went with being a colonial white Protestant of British descent. In fact, one way to take religion seriously would be to follow the counsel of the psalmist who advised not putting our trust in princes. This was the instruction that led Martin Luther to write, “That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them abideth.” If the psalmist and Luther were right, then a serious approach to the religion of the Bible might well teach that the search for a Christian America is a foolish enterprise the fortunes of the kingdom of grace don’t depend on presidents, senators, or monarchs.

Taking religion seriously might also mean taking irreligion seriously. Part of the point of the exercise of finding a devout and orthodox George Washington appears to be to discredit those Americans who are not as inclined to think about Christianity the way that our first president did. If we can show that the American republic was originally much more friendly to religion than the current regime, the logic seems to go, then Christians have the upper hand over secularists when it comes to understanding the character and identity of the United States.

The problem with this debating tactic for Presbyterians who live in the United States – aside from the religious freedom granted by the Constitution – is that American Presbyterians’ own confession of faith recognizes a similar responsibility of the magistrate to protect the religion, as well as the irreligion, of all citizens. About a decade after John Witherspoon signed the Declaration of Independence, he helped to revise the Presbyterian Church’s confession of faith in a way that went like this:

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. 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. (WCF, 23.3)

One way to read this piece of Lillback’s own confession is to suggest that Westminster’s president has not taken religious seriously enough. Not only does he seem to conflate civil religion with the genuine article, but he appears to have neglected his own communion’s teaching about the freedoms for believers and unbelievers that the state should protect. Rather than scoring points in the culture wars against liberals, Lillback’s argument boomerangs on everyone who thinks that taking religion seriously applies only to the “other” side.

Where's Waldo Wednesday: Dead Bodies

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Thanks to one of the interlocutors at oldlife, I have been mulling over the meaning of union with Christ in light of the Shorter Catechism’s teaching that the bodies of deceased saints, while resting in their graves (an argument against cremation, mind you), remain united to Christ. It is indeed a mind numbing thought to think that a body, destitute of life and its soul, is still united to Christ when in fact the point of much union teaching concerns the life-giving work of the Holy Spirit. In which case, how can a dead body still remain united to Christ when the purpose of union is vitality?

I understand that physical life is different from spiritual life (dualism alert!). And I also understand that the resurrection of the body will manifest the body’s union with Christ. Even so, it is hard to conceive how a body six-feet under is united with Christ when the body’s soul is actually in glory with Christ. I wonder here what the difference between being present with Christ and being united to Christ. Is presence more united to Christ than absence?

Anyhoo, these mysteries sent me searching in Fisher’s Catechism. I’m not sure I can follow the logic and after reading Fisher I do wish we had a better glossary on the different kinds of union. But if readers can help a mind that boggles over mysteries I’d be glad for the assistance.

Here is Fisher on the nature of bodies united to Christ in connection with effectual calling:

Q. 13. To whom are sinners united before union with Christ?

A. To the first Adam, Rom. 5:12.

Q. 14. By what bond are they united to the first Adam?

A. By the bond of the covenant of works, by which Adam, who was the natural root of his posterity, became their moral root also, bearing them as their representative in that covenant, Rom. 5:19.

Q. 15. How is this union dissolved?

A. By being “married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead,” Rom. 7:4.

Q. 16. Is Christ united to us before we become united to him?

A. The union is mutual, but it begins first on his side, 1 John 4:19.

Q. 17. How does it begin first on his side?

A. By unition, which is before union.

Q. 18. What do you understand by unition?

A. It is the Spirit of Christ uniting himself first to us, according to the promise, “I will put my Spirit within you,” Ezek. 36:27.

Q. 19. How does the Spirit of Christ unite himself first to us?

A. By coming into the soul, at the happy moment appointed for the spiritual marriage with Christ, and quickening it, so that it is no more morally dead, but alive, having new spiritual powers put into it, Eph. 2:5 — “Even when we were dead in sins, he hath quickened us.”

Now here is Fisher on dead bodies remaining united to Christ:

Q. 27. What benefits do believers receive from Christ, at death, with respect to their bodies?

A. Their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection, Isa. 57:1, 2; Job 19:26.

Q. 28. How does it appear that the bodies of believers in their graves remain still united to Christ?

A. The union was with the person of believers, of which their bodies are a part; and this union being indissoluble, it must still subsist with their bodies in the grave, as well as with their souls in heaven, Isa. 26:19.

Q. 29. How may believers be assured of this from the union between the two natures in the person of Christ?

A. Because, as at the death of Christ, though his soul was separated from his body, yet neither the one nor the other were separated from his divine person, but remained as firmly united to it as ever; so neither the soul nor body of the believer shall be separated from Christ by their separation from one another at death, but both of them remain indissolubly united to him for ever, Rom. 8:38, 39.

Mind you, this all makes sense, especially the second quotation. But I wonder if Fisher is using union in several senses throughout his discussion. In which case, we really do need a glossary.

The Fight Against Sentimentality

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Machen deals with Charles Erdman and Robert Speer in the fight against sentimentality.  Dr. Darryl G. Hart taught this lesson at Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Glenside, PA where he serves as elder.

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post photo in part by jayegirl99

Forensic Friday (night): Hodge on Paul on the Gospel

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The apostle, in unfolding the plan of redemption proceeds on the assumption that men are under a law or covenant which demands perfect obedience, and which threatens death in case of transgression. He then shows that no man, whether Jew or Gentile, can fulfill the conditions of that covenant, or so obey the law as to claim justification on the ground of his own righteousness. Still, as this law is perfectly righteous, it cannot be arbitrarily set aside. What then was to be done? What hope can there be for the salvation of sinners? The apostle answers by saying, that what the law could not do (that is, save men), God has accomplished by the mission of the Son. But how does the Son save us? This is the very question before us. It relates to the nature of the work of Christ . . . . Paul’s answer to that question is, that Christ saves us by being made under the law and fulfilling all its demands. He fulfilled all righteousness, he knew no sin, he was holy, harmless, and separate from sinners. He bore our sins in his own body on the tree, and thus endured the death which the law threatened against sin. He has thus redeemed us from the law; that, is, we are no longer under obligation to satisfy, in our own person, its demands, in order to our justification, the perfect righteousness of Christ is offered as the ground of justification, and all who accept of that righteousness by faith, have it so imputed to them , that they can plead it as their own, and God has promised to accept it to their salvation. We can hardly persuade ourselves that any ordinary reader of the Bible can deny that this is a correct representation of the manner in which Paul preached the gospel. (Charles Hodge, “Beman on the Atonement,” Essays and Reviews, pp., 155-56)

Where's Waldo Wednesday: Priorities

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The objection to the priority of justification rests partly on the idea that justification and sanctification come simultaneously (though distinctly) through union with Christ – prioritization prohibited. And yet, the problem of prioritizing one benefit before another doesn’t seem to bother the advocates of union when it comes to the rest of the benefits purchased by Christ.

The duplex gratia apparently teaches a double or two-fold benefit that comes through faith in Christ, one being forensic and the other being renovative. And yet, the Standards teach that believers receive not simply justification and sanctification, but also adoption and the other benefits that accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification.

Q. 36. What are the benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption and sanctification?

A. The benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption and sanctification, are, assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance therein to the end. (Shorter Catechism)

Q. 82. What is the communion in glory which the members of the invisible church have with Christ?

A. The communion in glory which the members of the invisible church have with Christ, is in this life, immediately after death, and at last perfected at the resurrection and day of judgment.

Q. 83. What is the communion in glory with Christ which the members of the invisible church enjoy in this life?

A. The members of the invisible church have communicated to them in this life the firstfruits of glory with Christ, as they are members of him their head, and so in him are interested in that glory which he is fully possessed of; and, as an earnest thereof, enjoy the sense of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, and hope of glory; as, on the contrary, sense of God’s revenging wrath, horror of conscience, and a fearful expectation of judgment, are to the wicked the beginning of their torments which they shall endure after death.(Larger Catechism)

So, aside from the question of how these other benefits – such as adoption – fit in the duplex scheme, it looks like the advocates of union prioritize just as much as the advocates of justification priority. One group prioritizes justification and sanctification among the benefits. The other prioritizes justification. Rather than being illegitimate, prioritizing is basic to both sides. (It could even be that union advocates prioritize union.)

What Glenn Beck and Peter Lillback Need to Know about the Church and Social Justice

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The church’s mission is not social justice if, by such equity we mean the punishment of wickedness and the reward of virtue. One way to substantiate this assertion is by looking for the word “justice” in the church’s corporate witness. A word search reveals in the Belgic Confession, for instance, that justice appears in the discussion of God’s treatment of sin and the remedy in Christ (Article 20) and in the work of the magistrate (Article 36). A similar use of the word occurs in Calvin’s catechism where he talks about the justice of God in punishing sin (Q. 154), and penalties for stealing (Q. 205). Calvin also speaks of justice in connection with the second petition of the Lord’s prayer (Q. 269), and the respect for justice that accompanies sanctification (Q. 290). In the Westminster Confession, “justice” appears only in chapter three on the eternal decree (3.7), providence (5.1), the work of Christ (8.5), justification (11.3), the function of the civil magistrate (23.2), and the last judgment (33.2). If the earliest Reformed Protestants believed the church should promote social justice, they were remarkably silent both about that part of ecclesiastical duty and the very idea itself.

If by social justice, like the way that Peter Lillback used it on the Glenn Beck show, one means various ways to improve a person’s material circumstances, such as education for the ignorant, relief for orphans, welfare for the poor, food for the hungry, and medicine for the sick, the matter of the church’s duties is contested. Word and deed advocates insist that the church carries out such work indiscriminately, that is, it provides welfare to everyone irrespective of their standing within the church (no matter whether a given congregation has the capacity to provide medical or educational assistance). Word and sacrament advocates in contrast hold that diaconal work is an important and necessary ministry but that the church’s role in alleviating misery extends only to the saints (except in extraordinary circumstances). Even then, the diaconate’s commission is not nearly as broad as the welfare state’s. Diaconal work is not an excuse, then, for the church to establish hospitals, orphanages, schools, and kitchens under the oversight of the church. The doctrine of sphere-sovereignty has long put limits on the church and given many of these functions to the family.

By the way, why exactly should the church be involved in the work of humanitarian relief or social justice when a perfectly good nation exists – in the United States, anyway – for carrying out such functions? Political conservatives may well object to the idea that the American government is perfectly good or whether the state should have nanny-like responsibilities. The Bible may not vindicate the political conservative position, but given the affinity of Mr. Beck and Dr. Lillback to the Republican party, and hence to some form of conservatism, one might think that objections to the culture of dependence fostered by the welfare state (one of the many unintended consequences of good intentions) might occur to anyone who thinks the church should give out aid as freely as the state. In fact, Paul’s counsel to Timothy in his first letter (chapter five) indicates that the apostle himself was well aware of the problem of giving assistance to the undeserving poor (in this case, widows).

So if the church’s mission is not social justice or material welfare (beyond the work of the diaconate), then why is the church constantly tempted to pursue social justice? In his interview with Beck, Lillback implied that the problem of social justice comes when it is part of a liberal theological package. What he fails to see is that the church’s involvement in social reform and political activism is the way by which churches become liberal. In other words, no good form of ecclesial social justice exists. Even if the church still preaches the gospel, social justice is the means by which the church loses sight of her purpose and the significance of her message. The reason is that to argue that the church has an obligation to pursue a political or social agenda (or even a program of material welfare), the church has already become confused about the gospel and its benefits. In the words of the sociologist, Peter Berger, social justice is a form of “works righteousness.”

Three historical examples might help to make this point plausible. The first comes from the reunion of the Old and New School Presbyterians in 1869. The language of the plan for reunion was lush with references to the political circumstances of the United States after a grueling Civil War. The implicit logic was that the nation needed a Presbyterians to unite as much as it had needed to avert southern secession. Here is how the report put it:

The changes which have occurred in our own country and throughout the world, during the last thirty years – the period of our separation – arrest and compel attention. Within this time the original number of our States has been very nearly doubled. . . . And all this vast domain is to be supplied with the means of education and the institutions of religion, as the only source and protection of our national life. The population crowding into this immense area is heterogeneous. Six millions of emigrants, representing various religious and nationalities, have arrived on our shores within the last thirty years; and four millions of slaves, recently enfranchised, demand Christian education. It is no secret that anti-Christian forces – Romanism, Ecclesiasticisim, Rationalism, Infidelity, Materialism, and Paganism itself – assuming new vitality, are struggling for the ascendency. Christian forces should be combined and deployed, according to the new movements of their adversaries it is no time for small and weak detachments, which may easily be defeated in detail. . . .

Before the world we are no engaged, as a nation, in solving the problem whether it is possible for all the incongruous and antagonistic nationalities thrown upon our shores, exerting their mutual attraction and repulsion, to become fused in one new American sentiment. If the several branches of the Presbyterian Church in this country, representing to a great degree ancestral differences, should become cordially united, it must have not only a direct effect upon the question of our national unity, but reacting by the force of a successful example on the old World, must render aid in that direction, to all how are striving to reconsider and readjust those combinations, which had their origin either in the faults or the necessities of a remote past.

Now this reunion had not addressed the theological problems that had created the Old School-New School split in the first place, namely the teaching of the New Haven Theology and the denial of the federal theology on which the Presbyterian Church’s confession depended. By the 1860s those doctrinal problems seemed to be insignificant compared to the pressing needs of the nation. This was the church of Charles Hodge, by the way.

Only four decades later, the ecumenical spirit that led Old and New School Presbyterians to lay aside differences prompted American Protestants more generally to join hands to form the Federal Council of Churches. And the reason for this amazing act of ecclesial generosity was not a church synod or council that had steered a path through the polity, sacramental, and doctrinal divisions among American Protestants. Instead, the reason for unity was social justice, namely, the need for the churches to address antagonisms within the American economy and the nation’s politics that were dividing citizens of the United States along class lines. So the Federal Council’s first act was to write a new creed, a social one:

We deem it the duty of all Christian people to concern themselves directly with certain practical industrial problems. To us it seems that the churches must stand —

For equal rights and complete justice for all men in all stations of life.

For the right of all men to the opportunity for self-maintenance, a right ever to be wisely and strongly safeguarded against encroachments of every kind.

For the right of workers to some protection against the hardships often resulting from the swift crises of industrial change.

For the principle of conciliation and arbitration in industrial dissensions.

For the protection of the worker from dangerous machinery, occupational disease, injuries and mortality.

For the abolition of child labor.

For such regulation of the conditions of toil for women as shall safeguard the physical and moral health of the community.

For the suppression of the “sweating system.”

For the gradual and reasonable reduction of the hours of labor to the lowest practicable point, and for that degree of leisure for all which is a condition of the highest human life.

For a release from employment one day in seven.

For a living wage as a minimum in every industry, and for the highest wage that each industry can afford.

For the most equitable division of the products of industry that can ultimately be devised.

For suitable provision for the old age of the workers and for those incapacitated by injury.

For the abatement of poverty.

To the toilers of America and to those who by organized effort are seeking to lift the crushing burdens of the poor, and to reduce the hardships and uphold the dignity of labor, this Council sends the greeting of human brotherhood and the pledge of sympathy and of help in a cause which belongs to all who follow Christ.

Mind you, this statement, approved by the Presbyterian Church in which Benjamin Warfield was a minister, failed to supply proof texts for these proposals, thereby avoiding the “thus, sayeth the Lord” motivation that social justice needs. Even more telling was that these churches believed they could unite on points of public policy even while divided on liturgical, polity, and doctrinal matters that the Lord had indeed commanded. In other words, the social and political problems of the hour were obscuring the church’s basic teachings and practices.

A similar understanding of the relationship between the religious and the social, or the theological and political is at work recently in the Manahattan Declaration, the very statement that Lillback recommended to Beck at the end of their interview, when he said:

I would like to tell all of your listeners and Glenn, you personally, that you need to put your signature on the Manhattan Declaration. Chuck Colson spoke to me about this some months ago and he said, “Would you help me sign it?”

And I had the privilege of being one of the first 100 signatories. And basically, he said this — we need to bring together the movement of people across this country who are willing to die for what they believe in. And the things that are being challenged where the government is going to come to force us out of the convictions are the sanctity of life, our definition of historic marriage and our resounding commitment to protect rights of conscience of religious liberty.

In the Manhattan Declaration, not only have the differences among Protestant denominations been placed in the background compared to the pressing social demands of the sanctity of human life and religious liberty. Also Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Eastern Orthodoxy are now united in the name of Christ and for the sake of the gospel to advocate certain moral and social causes in the public sphere. One paragraph from the Declaration supplies the “thus, sayeth the Lord” part that the Federal Council missed:

We, as Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians, have gathered, beginning in New York on September 28, 2009, to make the following declaration, which we sign as individuals, not on behalf of our organizations, but speaking to and from our communities. We act together in obedience to the one true God, the triune God of holiness and love, who has laid total claim on our lives and by that claim calls us with believers in all ages and all nations to seek and defend the good of all who bear his image. We set forth this declaration in light of the truth that is grounded in Holy Scripture, in natural human reason (which is itself, in our view, the gift of a beneficent God), and in the very nature of the human person. We call upon all people of goodwill, believers and non-believers alike, to consider carefully and reflect critically on the issues we here address as we, with St. Paul, commend this appeal to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.

The specific public questions that demand a Christian response are as follows:

Because the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as a union of husband and wife, and the freedom of conscience and religion are foundational principles of justice and the common good, we are compelled by our Christian faith to speak and act in their defense. In this declaration we affirm: 1) the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every human being as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, possessing inherent rights of equal dignity and life; 2) marriage as a conjugal union of man and woman, ordained by God from the creation, and historically understood by believers and non-believers alike, to be the most basic institution in society and; 3) religious liberty, which is grounded in the character of God, the example of Christ, and the inherent freedom and dignity of human beings created in the divine image.

Meanwhile, these Christians who disagree on the gospel – and hence worship God in different communions – are agreed that the matters they address are on the order of the very gospel that divides them. The Declaration states:

We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right—and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation—to speak and act in defense of these truths. We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence. It is our duty to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness, both in season and out of season. May God help us not to fail in that duty.

These examples indicate that when churches engage in social or political programs invariably they lose their theological bearings and become liberal – as in, they lose sight of what is orthodox. (I personally do not think that everyone who signed the Declaration sees the tension between their own church’s faith, and the problems of cooperating with Christians who are not in fellowship with their communion. I also don’t know why they could not have formed a committee or association to pursue these matters without appealing to Christ or the gospel. One obvious reason is that a non-religious appeal lacks urgency and purposefulness.)

Conceivably, a historical example might be found that disproved this rule about social and political involvement generating liberalism – though the state churches of Europe would seem to vindicate this point in spades. But behind the historical record is a theological principle, namely, that when a church confuses the benefits of redemption with the comforts of a better life or the equitable workings of the state it has misunderstood the significance of the message it proclaims. Calvin, for what it’s worth, called such confusion, a “Judaic folly,” as in confusing the earthly Jerusalem with the heavenly one.

So what Beck needs is a better account of why social justice is code for liberal theology. Lillback missed a golden opportunity when he failed to tell Beck what the confession of his own denomination teaches about the mission of the church:

Unto this catholic visible church Christ hath given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God, for the gathering and perfecting of the saints, in this life, to the end of the world: and doth, by his own presence and Spirit, according to his promise, make them effectual thereunto. (WCF 23.3)

P.S. Apologies to NORM! if this is more scholarly than blogs tend to be.

The Fight Against Liberalism, Round 2: Foreign Missions

Published on by D. G. Hart1 Comment

Darryl Hart continues his series on J. Gresham Machen looking at Machen and the Independent Board of Presbyterian Foreign Missions.  The independent board was created as a reaction to the liberal theology permeating the denominational board.  The controversy surrounding the board eventually led to Machen’s removal as minister of the Presbyterian Church.

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