Old Life

Over at First Principles, Lynn Robinson has a good review essay of a new IVP book by Greg Foster, The Contested Public Square: The Crisis of Christianity and Politics.  Robinson quotes Foster to good effect about the political theology of the New Testament (or the lack thereof):

Almost the only political teaching it provides is that a person’s ordinary political duties (behaving peacefully, obeying the law, paying taxes, etc.) continue to apply when rulers deny God and persecute believers. . . . The New Testament’s silence on politics combined with the apostles’ setting aside the political order of the Old Testament leaves the faithful with no revelatory instruction as to how their political affairs are to be ordered.

Why is this so hard to understand? I guess the one consolation for theonomists, whether soft or hard, is the support they get from the good bishop Tom Wright who interprets the Lordship of Christ in ways remarkably similar to our politically challenged friends.

And makes a very good point about ecclesiology, as opposed to sexual misconduct, along the way.

No presbytery just wakes up one morning and, out of the blue, declares `I’m going to ordain a practising homosexual today.’  As every presbyterian knows, our church courts change very, very slowly.  So the question to ask is: how did the C of S come to such a pass?  The answer, in part (and I stress ‘in part’ — I am interested here only in the evangelical dimension), lies with the policy of William Still and his followers, which was essentially built on the notion that the courts of the church could be conceded to the liberals as long as the evangelicals were allowed to keep preaching the gospel from their own pulpits.  This was the very antithesis of the Southern Baptist policy and ironically, meant that, while the baptists acted like quasi-presbyterians, the Stillites acted like Independents.

The policy worked well for the big C of S churches — e.g. the Tron, Gilcomston South, Holyrood — who were large enough to keep the hawks from George Street at bay; what it meant, however, was that the smaller churches, the anonymous evangelical pastors, and the lowly ministerial students candidates frequently came under huge pressure from presbyteries.  Since my first post, I have heard from one old friend who, as a student, was roasted in a presbytery on the gay issue while the evangelicals present literally sat in silence; another who was told by an evangelical leader to ordain a woman elder against his conscience because women’s ordination was not the hill to die on.  Both have since left the C of S, at considerable personal hardship.

If the Reformation 21 Blog were a blog, this conversation could go on over there. But seeing how its authors have chosen only to mix it up among themselves, reactions to their posts turn into posts on other blogs.

So Carl Trueman makes a good point about the inconsistency of evangelicals in the Church of Scotland objecting to the ordination of a gay minister but being fairly silent about the ordination and ministry of liberals. Trueman wrote, “Evangelicals who have not fought denials of the resurrection among office bearers — and some of whom stood by in silence as fellow evangelicals were beaten up by the church courts over refusals to ordain women — should not fight homosexuality. Indeed, they have absolutely no grounds upon which so to do; and it just looks like bigotry to the onlooking world. Too little, too late.”

This is a legitimate point and one the NTJ has made often about evangelicals in the PCUSA. It seems that mainline Presbyterian evangelicals get worked up on matters of sex, but matters of orthodoxy do not receive the same sort of diligence, as if the second table of the law were really the first.

In response, Michael Bird, says that Trueman doesn’t know the true state of evangelicalism in the Church of Scotland (thanks to Art Boulet for the link).   For instance, Trueman doesn’t give any credit to groups like Forward Together that are fighting the good fight in the Church of Scotland.  Nor does Trueman apparently know the wisdom of Kenny Rogers who sung about knowing when to call your opponents’ bluff in a poker game.  Bird also accuses Trueman of inconsistency himself.  It’s one thing to see the problems on the left when conservatives have plenty of problems to their right.  According to Bird, “those who hold to a KJV-onlyism, mandate that unaccompanied metrical psalms (sometimes it is exclusively the Scottish Psalter and not the modern Sing Psalms) is the only form of acceptable worship, those who won’t let women pray in church, professors who teach that ‘God has a covenant with America’, or those who treat the Westminster Confession with a greater authority than Scripture.”

Bird’s list of whacky right-wingers is curious, since something like the Westminster Confession is (or used to be) one of the standards in the Church of Scotland and the KJV and Christian America were not.   Could it be that if the Church of Scotland actually upheld Reformed, as opposed to evangelical standards, the ordination of gay ministers would not be an issue for the Kirk?  In fact, would Bird really turn away from the Church of Scotland men who affirmed the Westminster Confession, preached from the King James Version, chose to sing only psalms from the hymnal, and opposed women’s ordination?  It would appear that Trueman really does have a point about the incoherence of evangelicals in the Church of Scotland.  Do the folks at Forward Together really welcome only those ministers who have Jesus in their heart but then will ordain people that fall outside the qualifications Jesus revealed?  Is working with a psalm singer really as bad as working with a homosexual?  That’s a pretty arbitrary call, not to mention a much narrower standard than the apparently exclusive terrain on the Right.  In fact, the folks who oppose women’s ordination, who preach from the KJV, and who adhere closely to the Westminster Standards are capable of rallying behind Reformed orthodoxy.  It remains clear whether evangelicals in the Kirk are or ever will be.

Of course, that raises another question, one that boomerangs back on Trueman.  Why do some conservative Presbyterians continue to defend evangelicalism and at the same time voice some of the most telling criticisms of born-again Protestantism all the while maintaining a reputation as a good evangelical?  If Ref 21 would ever open itself up for comments, we might get an answer.

Update: the plot thickens.  Trueman calls attention to a petition on behalf of the evangelical position on homosexuality within the Church of Scotland.  He then appropriately has reservations about making homosexuality rather adultery the defining issue in the case before the Kirk.   Phil Ryken then takes Trueman mildly to task and explains why he signed the petition.   I guess that’s why they call it an Alliance.