Category Archives: Federal Vision

Action by Louisiana Presbytery on the Steve Wilkins examination

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Without a lot of fanfare, at least that I see, the Louisiana Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America, at their January 20 meeting, passed a resolution that says:

“Louisiana Presbytery, after thorough examination and investigation of TE Steve Wilkins as per the SJC directives regarding allegations made in the Central Carolina Presbytery Memorial, finds no strong presumption of guilt in any of the charges contained therein and exercises its prerogative not to institute process regarding those allegations.”  [Clerk’s note: See BCO 31-2.]

So, the Presbytery finds no problems and the ball is back to the Standing Judicial Commission. The resolution is posted on their front web page with little additional comment, only the historical context.

The Auburn Avenue Church, where Steve Wilkins is the senior pastor, has echoed the resolution on their home page.

Outside of that, and the brief echo or mention on several blogs, the web has been pretty quiet on this.  I guess others join me in seeing this as an expected step in the larger drama that is playing out and the tension will increase this month when the SJC meets to consider Louisiana’s response to their earlier decision.

Now, this is not to say that the blogosphere is quiet about Federal Vision Theology.  The conversations, analysis and criticism and response continues full tilt out here.  Rev. Wilkins examination is a present a side bar in the larger discussion of this topic.

Louisiana Presbytery of the PCA Re-examines Rev. Steve Wilkins regarding his Federal Vision Theology

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Last Saturday, December 9, the Louisiana Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America had a called meeting for the purpose of examining the Rev. Steve Wilkins, Senior Pastor of Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church in Monroe, LA.  This examination was required by the PCA’s Standing Judicial Commission (SJC) when they found the previous examination did not fulfill requirements.  This is part of the developing controversy over Federal Vision Theology which I summarized in an earlier post.

The examination was in two parts:  there were both written and oral responses.  The written responses to questions are available from both the church and the presbytery web sites.  At the time of this writing, Auburn Avenue PC has made MP3’s of the oral exam available on their church web site, look for the links at the bottom of the main page.  The required examination is now completed.  The committee is expected to issue its report in January.

More interesting is the response to the examination.  I have seen no mention of the examination yet in “conventional” news coverage but the blogosphere has lit up.  I will mention two blogs that provide more light than heat. (No pun intended on the first one.)

First, the blog Post Tenebras Lux has a helpful post on this examination titled “A quick review of some Presbyterian politics.” The author has included some extra details on this specific situation which I had not paid attention to before, such as the fact that Rev. Wilkins’ first examination was completely voluntary and that the SJC asked the presbytery to redo the examination on the technical grounds that proper records were not kept while the blog author says that the requested records are not required for a committee report.

The second blog is Barlow Farms, a blog I mentioned previously in connection with this topic.  He has posted two entries, the first on Dec. 13 with excerpts from Rev. Wilkins’ written answers, and the second the next day with a discussion of some of the extended discussion that has since arose about this examination.

I should probably mention the blog “Blog and Mablog” written by Douglas Wilson who is another significant proponent of Federal Vision Theology.  In an entry on Dec. 14 he gives his take on the current developments.  There is a lot of good information and good discussion in the comments on that post.  Included in there is a comment by Mr. Milton Dale Peacock who is the clerk for both Auburn Ave. PC and Louiasiana Presbytery.  He says that the committee will report back to the regular presbytery meeting on January 20 and then the report will be sent to the SJC.  The comments then get into a heavy discussion on a couple of the fine points of the theology but not the polity.

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.