Category Archives: OPC

A Shared History And Blogging Presbyterians

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There are times when I start talking about the Church Fathers, especially Augustine, that people’s eyes glaze over and sometimes complain that “he was a Catholic theologian” (usually not in as many words though).

Well, besides the fact that John Calvin incorporated a lot of Augustine’s thinking in his own work, many in the Reformed Tradition seem to forget the fact that in the roughly 2000 years of the Christian Church, the present Reformed Church has only been around for one-quarter of that time.  (And I say “present Reformed Church” because the object of the Reformation, and of our “always being reformed” is to more closely follow the pattern of the early New Testament church.  But that is a topic for another time…)

In the same manner many in the mainline American Presbyterian Church think that all those other Presbyterian branches running around are just groups that “broke off from us.”  They forget that the mainline has split and merged three times itself and that at the time of the American Civil War there were four parts to the mainline church (if it can be thought of as mainline at that time) and the present PC(USA) has, as a merged body, only been in existence for less than 10% of the history of American Presbyterianism.

(As an interesting aside, with the controversy in the Church of Scotland this past week I have been correlating their history with the American Presbyterian history.  The major Scottish split, “The Disruption of 1843” is about the same time as the American Old School/New School split of 1837.  I’ll be looking into that further to see about connections.)

All of this to say that there is a whole bunch of American Presbyterian history that the majority of modern Presbyterian branches share.  With that in mind the following three blogs may be of interest to others who share an interest in Presbyterian history, or at least what got us to the point we are now at polity-wise.  Don’t expect these blogs to always be “mainline friendly,” but they provide great historical insights into where we are now.

Old Life Theological Society – The moment I heard that Darryl Hart was a contributor to this blog I was hooked.  The material is a mix of current events and historical information, but even the posts about current topics come with a good dose of historical perspective.

The PCA Historical Center has just started two new blogs as well.  (Remember that shared history?  If you want the historical background on the PC(USA) Book of Order that came from the PCUS branch they have all of that online.)  Thanks to Mr. Wayne Sparkman, the director of the PCA Historical Center for overseeing these two new blogs.

The first one is the PCA History Blog and the description says that this is a place for people to share their stories about the PCA.

The second one is The Continuing Story and the purpose says that it  “. . . is to provide a convenient place to share some of the wealth of
treasure to be found in the archives at the PCA Historical Center.”  Among the information posted so far are pictures of the oldest item in the collection, a 1641 Calvin medal struck for the centennial celebration of Calvin’s return to Geneva.

So here is more information to keep us GA Junkies educated.  Thanks for the blogs and happy reading.

75th General Assembly (2008) of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church

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The 75th General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church was held at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, from Wednesday July 9 to Wednesday July 16, 2008.  There were around 150 OPC commissioners and fraternal delegates.  The OPC web site has a GA Report web page that was updated regularly throughout the week written by the Rev. James J. Cassidy with editing by Stephen Pribble, Linda Foh, and Barry Traver.  My report below is a summary and commentary on that report.

Business began with worship, including the Word preached by the Moderator of the 74th GA, the Rev. Robert Y. Eckardt.  After the roll call of commissioners and seating of fraternal delegates the floor was opened for nominations for Moderator.  The Rev. Alan Strange, Associate Professor of Church History at Mid-America Reformed Seminary was the only nominee and so was elected by acclimation and applause.  Following his installation of the Moderator the commissioners received their Advisory Committee assignments and the Assembly adjourned for the night.  [The Advisory Committees are the commissioner committees of the GA’s of other branches and as a PC(USA) based GA Junkie I have to keep straight their acronym “AC” which to me stands for “Administrative Commission.”]

On Thursday the commissioners worked throughout the day in committees and gathered in plenary in the evening to hear the reports of the Stated Clerk, Trustees, Statistician.  In addition all of these individuals were re-elected to serve again in those capacities for the coming year.  The Statistician reported a growth in the OPC of eight churches and 221 individuals.  Proportionately this is growth of about 3/4 of 1%, but it is growth even with the departure of one large congregation.

The evening session also included the report of the Committee on Coordination that works with three other standing committees for a unified Worldwide Outreach by the OPC.  One of these three committees then reported, the Committee on Christian Education.  One emphasis of the committee has been on recruiting young men for the ministry since at this time almost half of the active OPC ministers are over the age of 50.  It was also reported that a new Psalter-hymnal is in preparation for publication in 2011 and a report on the continued partnership with the PCA in their publishing arm, Great Commission Publications.

On Friday the Assembly heard the report from the Committee on Home Missions and Church Extension, including the information that there are currently 20 church planters working around the country with support from the denomination.  There was also a report on Foreign Missions and the outreach work of the church around the world.

There was a greeting from fraternal delegate the Rev. Kevin Backus from the Bible Presbyterian Church who was straight forward in his report of disagreements in the BPC over the relationship with the OPC.  In the end the BPC has chosen to remain in communication with the OPC despite the loss of some members over that decision.

On Saturday Dr. D. Clair Davis brought a word from the Presbyterian Church in America.  The report describes his comments:

He expressed how happy he was to hear the foreign and home missions
reports—”God has been good to you!” Dr. Davis explained that the PCA
grew by 1.5 percent last year, but 1/3 of the congregations are under
50 members, and 2/3 under 100. In other words, Redeemer Church in
Manhattan is not a typical PCA congregation. “Have we traded in
doctrine and life for church growth? I don’t think so. If we did, we
got cheated.” He went on to say that WCF 15:5 (which reads: “Men ought
not to content themselves with a general repentance, but it is every
man’s duty to endeavor to repent of his particular sins particularly”)
has something to teach us. We need to repent of not just being
separate, but for what we have said and left unsaid. He encouraged us
to get to know each other better, and have lunch with a local PCA
pastor. And lastly, Dr. Davis shared something of what the PCA is doing
to reach Muslims today. More and more Muslims are making their way into
Europe and America, and thus we have an opportunity to reach them: “I
urge you to support us and work with us in the conversion of Islam for
the glory of Jesus Christ.” After his address Dr. Davis received a
standing ovation.

[If you did not get the reference to Redeemer Church in New York City, that is the multi-site “mega-church” whose head of staff is the Rev. Tim Keller.]

On Monday the Assembly considered the two overtures (yes, two compared to the 100+ for the PC(USA) and 19 for the PCA) presbyteries had sent to the GA.  The first considered was a request that the Presbytery of New Jersey expand its boundaries to include Puerto Rico.  The Assembly Committee that considered it recommended approval and the Assembly agreed.  The second overture, from the Presbytery of the Northwest, proposed a change in the process for a congregation to withdraw from the denomination (Form of Government XVI:7:a) that would change the time for the presbytery to respond from three weeks to “as soon as possible.”  The requested change was disapproved.  (I have not found the texts of the overtures but I am curious if the rational wants to allow the presbyteries less or more time to respond, probably more.  It is also interesting that this change is in the spirit of PC(USA) Form of Government revision that proposes to remove specific time frames from the polity.)

Other regular business before the Assembly included the approval of the records review, ratification of new member denominations for both the North Americans Presbyterian and Reformed Council and the Presbyterian and Reformed Joint Committee on Chaplains and Military Personnel, invitation of churches into corresponding relations with the OPC, and hearing reports on Interchurch Relations, Chaplaincy, and from the Historian.  These routine matters also included the rejection of a change to the constitution of the International Conference of Reformed Churches that would have introduced a bit more flexibility in the confessional standards a denomination must hold to be a member.  In another difficult matter, the committee on pensions had to report that while the pension fund was doing all right, the medical fund was not.  The Assembly voted to disband the fund in early 2009 and assist churches in finding alternate medical coverage for ministers.  In this and other reports churches were encouraged to look after their ministers.  On a better note, there were no judicial appeals for the Assembly to hear and deliberate on this year.  (Much as the PJC or SJC would hear and decide a case on appeal from a presbytery or synod.)

The balance of the Assembly’s time was spent deliberating and discussing the Amended Proposed Revised Version of the Directory for the Public Worship of God (APRV).  This has been in the works for a number of years, and in fact the 74th General Assembly began work on the revision last year, knowing that they would not finish the task.  It was with great rejoicing that this year’s GA did finish, but not without a significant amount of time and parliamentary deliberation.  By my count, of the rough equivalent total time of five days of plenary meeting time, almost three full days were spent on the APRV, and as I said, they picked up with they left off last year.  If you want the blow-by-blow description you will have to check out the report, although Rev. Cassidy says in the report that even he is not capturing everything.  I have picked out three details of the discussion that struck me to highlight.

1)  As I read through the report, it seems that the most time was spent debating the third membership vow:

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

There was extended time, like a whole evening and then continuing on into the next assembly session, debating the precise wording of this vow.  Among other things, how the word “abhor” was used and its context in the vow.  In the end, after several (numerous?) proposed changes, the original language was retained.

2)  The second item was closely related to this:  Later in the debate a protest was filed that begins:

The undersigned protest against the action of the seventy-fifth General
Assembly in mandating the use of the exact language of the membership
vows, and furthermore in adopting language that is not acceptable to
several members of the Assembly, thereby binding consciences beyond
what was required of them at their ordination vows.

It then goes on to argue that  this has pastoral implications and that by requiring specific language a session can not have scruples over the specific language.  (Scruples are not just a concept or issue in the PC(USA))  A motion to reconsider was requested.  Seeing a time-sink ahead of them they did the logical think and took a break for dinner.   After dinner the motion was made and passed to reconsider the previous action.  Specifically, all this dealt with a revised footnote that now allowed modification of the vows only in the case where an individual could not understand them in their exact form.  After further consideration the Assembly returned the footnote to say that a session did have the power to modify the language of the vows for their church but  must note the change in the minutes.  With passage of that wording the protest was withdrawn.

3)  Monday morning the motion was made to recommit the APRV to the committee that drafted it with instructions for them to review it and break out the portions of it that are not specifically guided or directed by scripture and place those portions into a manual.  (Like one of the guiding principles in the PC(USA) for the revision to the Form of Government.)  This would have reduced the Directory in size and brought it back to the next GA for word smithing.  The vote on this motion to recommit was first postponed to Monday evening, then postponed again to Tuesday morning, and postponed again to Tuesday evening where the motion was finally voted upon and failed 46 to 88.

This is not the end of the saga for the APRV, but it is now one major step closer to being published in a few years.  The next assembly will have to finalize the changes, and propose the changes to the Book of Church Order where the new Directory affects it.  While the process was long, and from Rev. Cassidy’s fine description it appears to have been as loaded with parliamentary procedure as any major decision in a Presbyterian General Assembly is, the Assembly took the job seriously and got through it.  In the PC(USA) the Assembly did not have the time to work through the revised Form of Government.  For this and other reasons they handed it off to a task force for further review and comment by the presbyteries.  But in our Presbyterian system this is not just a parliamentary exercise but our way of discerning God’s will.  As Rev. Cassidy says in the report:

It is a humbling thing to know that we are working on something so
awesome. This is all about the glorification of God’s great name! May
we not lose sight of this as we work to the point of weariness on this
Directory. This is not mere word-smithing or an exercise in rhetoric or
debating skills. This is to the end that God might be glorified in the
worship of his people.

Thank you Rev. Cassidy for your report.

Finally, and if this was in the report in past years I don’t remember it, the OPC GA presented the “jack-in-the-box award.”  This award is for the commissioner who jumps up to the microphone to speak from the floor the greatest number of times and is a regular unofficial report from the Church of Scotland staff.  The award itself was a Machen bobble-head doll.  How appropriate.

Headlines

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No, once again I have not fallen off the face of the earth, and I have not given up on being a GA Junkie.  But between work, family, and getting myself into a presbytery issue and also a synod issue, I have little time left to report on Presbyterian happenings here.

So today, I give you a selection of recent happenings in their barest form with links to more information.  My integration and analysis will have to wait.

In the Church of Scotland news, the new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the son of a Church of Scotland minister, is still dropping hints about cutting state oversight of the Church of England.  But what about changing the law so a non-Protestant can be monarch the Scottish Catholic bishop asks?

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America adopted the report declaring that the Federal Vision Theology is out of line with the orthodoxy of the Westminster standards.  Now the discussion is getting hot.  The Rev. Steve Wilkins (or TE Wilkins as the PCA’ers would say) has issued a response to the adoption of the report.  That and much more is available at his church’s Federal Vision Page.  There is also a public response from the Rev. Peter Leithart, another proponent.  In addition, the blogosphere is alive

At the General Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America there was a special motion “that a study
committee be created to read and evaluate reports and responses from other
Reformed denominations and institutions regarding recent controversies on the
doctrine of justification.”  In other words, they will also be studying the Federal Vision theology.

The General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church spent a significant amount of time revising their Directory for Public Worship.  This was a monumental task and after multiple sessions revising and word-smithing the document, they in the end only got through the Preface and five of the eighteen sections.  The whole project has been referred to the 2008 GA.

The Cumberland Presbyterian Church took the unique step of electing co-moderators of the GA.

And finally, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church GA approved the proposal to create the New Wineskins transitional presbytery for churches interested in leaving the PCUSA and exploring membership in the EPC.

More on these and other stories as my time permits.

OPC Discussion of the Federal Vision Controversy

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The February issue of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church‘s official publication, New Horizons, has a series of articles on the Federal Vision Controversy.  This issue is in fulfillment of the recommendations approved by the 2006 OPC General Assembly when they adopted the Report on Justification.  I have in general found articles in New Horizons to be relevant, well written, and informative and in skimming through these article I find that they meet the usual standards.  If you want some reading on the Federal Vision Theology you might want to check them out.

Federal Vision Controversy

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While the PC(USA) and Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand have been occupied with controversy over ordination standards, and the Church of Scotland and the Presbyterian Church in Ireland have been discussing blessing same-sex unions, over the last five years controversy has been building in the conservative branches of American Presbyterianism over a new resurgence of a covenental theology known at “Federal Vision Theology.”

I mentioned this back in August commenting on the General Synod of the Bible Presbyterian Church and their warnings against it and in looking back at the  PCA GA and OPC GA I see that they both dealt with it as well (PCA GA Summary, OPC Report on Justification) including church court cases that were pending in the PCA.  Since that time I have read some more about it and found the heights to which this controversy has risen and the number of denominations that are dealing with it.

If you are wondering about the origin of the name a footnote in the OPC Report discusses this:

[210] Perhaps it is helpful here to note that “federal” is employed in this respect to indicate “covenantal.” The word “federal” derives from the Latin “foedus” which means “covenant” (cf. Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986], 119-120). It has most commonly been used in this adjectival form to refer to the covenantal position of Adam and Christ as being that of federal headship.

It is impossible to properly describe the Federal Vision Theology and a related movement, the New Perspective on Paul, in this posting.  However, to greatly simplify this topic it revolves around the view of the covenant community and to what extent the “visible church” represents it and whether membership in a church is sufficient for justification.  In other words, if you are part of the community are you part of the covenant?  With discussions about justification by faith alone and ecclesiology you can see that it is a debate with implications for reformed theology.  As one good article from the PCA on-line magazine byFaith puts it:

To critics, the theological systems redefine the classic Reformation
doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone, which proponents of the New
Perspective dismiss as, among other things, a Lutheran misunderstanding
of the teaching of Paul. Federal Vision proponents place a strong
emphasis on the efficacy of the Sacraments, some embracing giving the
Lord’s Supper to baptized children and a view of baptism that, critics
believe, makes it a “regenerating” ordinance. Additionally, these
systems emphasize that final salvation has more to do with continuing
membership in the covenant community than with a personal salvation
experience. Critics believe the emphasis in all of these new paradigms
has shifted from the classic evangelical question “Are you saved?” to
“Are you in the Covenant?”. Proponents of the Federal Vision assert
that they are simply reaffirming a higher view of the sacraments as
advocated by Calvin before the church was later influenced by American
revivalism.

Another good, fairly neutral, and much longer article “Within the bounds of orthodoxy? An examination of the Federal Vision controversy” was written by Joseph Minich.  That and other resources are available on a dedicated web site: www.federal-vision.com.  There is also an entry in Theopedia.  Finally, the OPC report on the Doctrine of Justification mentioned above is also a great resource with several pages of background on both the Federal Vision Theology and the New Perspective on Paul as well discussion of where some of the concepts can be traced back to the earliest history of the Christian Church.

But, this blog is about the Politics of Presbyterianism so a quick recap of the denominational responses to this.  The first major presentations associated with Federal Vision Theology were delivered at a pastors conference at Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Monroe, Louisiana in January 2002.  The presenters (and their denominational affiliations) at this conference were John Barach (United Reformed Churches in North America), Steve Schlissel (independent reformed?), Steve Wilkins (PCA and senior pastor at Auburn Avenue PC), and Douglas Wilson (Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches).  In addition, two other writers who have been doing related but not identical work have become associated with the pro-Federal Vision group:  Anglican scholar Rev. N. T. Wright is part of a nearly 30 year old movement known as the New Perspective on Paul and the Rev. Norman Shepherd is a former OPC pastor and professor of systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia) who switched to the Christian Reformed Church when charges about his teachings were pending in the OPC in about 1981 (before the current Federal Vision controversy).

Probably the first formal response was from the Covenant Presbytery of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States which issued an official caution about some of the tenets of the Federal Vision in June of that same year and a message to the four presenters declaring their points heresy and calling for repentance.  (Note:  The RPCUS has a great web page documenting that denomination’s involvement in the controversy and providing links to articles about it in The New Southern Presbyterian Review.)  Since that time there has been significant discussion in that denomination about the theology but nothing that I see as new formal actions.

The Orthodox Presbyterian Church formally responded next with the formation by the 2004 General Assembly of a Committee To Study the Doctrine of Justification.  The committee reported to the 2005 GA and received an additional year to complete their study.  The 91 page study was presented to the 2006 GA and in addition to a detailed discussion of the history and points of the New Perspective on Paul and the Federal Vision it listed 20 points where the Federal Vision Theology departed from orthodoxy.  The GA commended the report for study with little debate as well as a list of 14 points on which candidates for ordination should be examined and the distribution of the report to the denomination including seminaries.

The response in the Presbyterian Church in America has been more extensive since Steve Wilkins and Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church are part of that denomination.  The earliest formal action appears to be the formation of a study committee in early 2004 by the Mississippi Valley Presbytery.  The Report of the Ad Hoc Committee was critical of the New Perspective on Paul and the Federal Vision and was unanimously adopted by the presbytery in February 2005 but the 2005 General Assembly declined to send out one presbytery’s report as a denominational statement.  The Louisiana Presbytery, the home presbytery of Auburn Avenue PC, responded with their own study which was adopted in July 2005 and was more favorable toward the Federal Vision advocates.  At it’s 2006 GA the PCA formed a study group on the controversy.

However, the controversy has entered the PCA church courts.  In January 2005 Central Carolina Presbytery communicated to Louisiana Presbytery their concerns about the orthodoxy of Rev. Wilkins’ teachings and the July 2005 study was part of the response to that.  Central Carolina Presbytery decided that Louisiana had not fulfilled its oversight roll fully and filed a complaint against them with the Standing Judicial Commission in January 2006.  The hearing was held in October 2006 and the SJC, in a decision issued about November 1, sided with Central Carolina saying:

It is the conclusion of the Standing Judicial Commission that Louisiana
Presbytery has not demonstrated either by formal records or informal
recollections that it has “with due diligence and great discretion”
(BCO 31-2) dealt with the allegations that TE Steven Wilkins’ views are
out of accord at key points with the system of doctrine as summarized
in the Westminster Confession of Faith and Larger and Shorter
Catechisms, which are “standard expositions of the teachings of
Scripture in relation to both faith and practice.” (BCO 29-1, 39-3) As
a result, Presbytery has not met its responsibilities under BCO 13-9.f
and 40-4,5, and thus has not adequately protected the peace and purity
of the Church.

Thanks to the blog A Submerging Church for posting the whole SJC decision.  The acronym TE in the report is “teaching elder.”  The remedy is to examine Rev. Wilkins on the specific points and report back to the SJC by February 16, 2007.

So, I think this is were the controversy stands at the moment.  I am surprised that it has not hit the “mainline” radar screens but then we are occupied with other things right now.  Over the next few months we will see how this controversy continues to develop.

GA of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church

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Greetings,

   The 73rd GA of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church met at Trinity Christian College in Illinois from June 21-28, 2006.  The denominations reports can be found on their web site’s GA page.

   One of the big items was the acceptance of a report on Justification.  The report is also available on the web site.  They report that a list of topics was included for examination of candidates.  There was also not much debate on the content, but how to distribute the report.

   I found it interesting that Book of Discipline amendments sent to the presbyteries by last year’s GA while approved will not go into affect until 2010!  Got to find out the story and history behind that one.

   The statistician’s report noted that their total membership has remained fairly constant at about 28,000 over the last few years but they lost three congregations to the PCA.

   Based on an overture from the Presbytery of Souther California a three member committee was formed “to study the issue regarding the propriety of the reception of illegal aliens into membership in the OPC…”

   There was also debate on two overtures requesting a new Psalter hymnal and the assembly finally adopted a substantially similar motion:

That the 73rd General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian
Church authorize its Committee on Christian Education to seek to
develop a Psalter-Hymnal by 2011 (our 75th anniversary)—which includes
musical settings of all 150 Psalms, in their entirety, with as much
accuracy and as little archaic language and confusing syntax as
possible—for use in our congregations; that it authorize the Committee
on Christian Education to appoint a special Psalter-Hymnal committee;
and that it grant this special committee a budget of up to $5,000 [per
year for committee expenses].

   There is a revision to the Directory for Public Worship underway.  The amount of input from around the church was great enough that the process was extended a year to deal with all the comments.

   The ecumenical greetings included one from the Bible Presbyterian Church, a notable event since it is really the first official contact between the denominations since their split in 1937.