Monthly Archives: December 2006

They are presbyterian?

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In a conversation this morning I was talking with my church’s men’s group about the three styles of church government: presbyterian, congregational, episcopal.  A retired minister in the group told us that the Assemblies of God, while clearly not Reformed or Calvinistic in theology and doctrine, are presbyterian in church order.  It turns out that they have presbyteries which are composed of both clergy and lay members.  Their candidates for ministry are monitored and certified by the regional bodies.  And there is accountability of lower governing bodies to higher ones.

Their web page on church structure has a basic outline of how they order themselves, and not surprisingly the word “presbyterian” is not to be found.  I don’t blame them since only a GA Junkie would be aware of the specific usage of the word for church governance as opposed to a reformed theology or a denomination.  (However, the Wikipedia entry for Assemblies of God does refer to them as “mostly presbyterian” in their church order.)  On their church structure I was struck by the fact that their opening statement is that Jesus Christ is the head of the church, just as the current PC(USA) Book of Order begins.  (I say current because the current draft of the rewrite would move that a section or two later.)

Well, I don’t plan on following the politics and polity of the Assemblies of God, but I thought that it was interesting that a non-reformed branch had a presbyterian government structure.

Moderator Designate for Free Church of Scotland 2007 General Assembly

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The Free Church of Scotland has announced its Moderator Designate for its 2007 General Assembly.  The committee has selected the Rev. Dr. John S. Ross currently serving at Greyfriars Free Church, Inverness.  He served four years as a missionary in Nigeria beginning in 1972 and has since served in a variety of churches and in a variety of ways for the denomination.  He holds a Ph.D. in Jewish Evangelism.

The Free Church of Scotland has issued a press release and there is a more detailed article from the Inverness Courier.

He stirred up controversy last Sunday in his sermon when he “accused the Government of forcing sexual orientation regulations through Parliament with ‘reckless speed'”.  He also said that the Government was not showing respect for freedom of conscience and the religious beliefs of Christians.  Gay rights leaders have accused Rev. Ross of inaccuracies in his statements and wanting to deny individuals of basic civil rights.   The article in the Inverness Courier has been picked up by many other news outlets.

New developments in Mission Presbytery over controversial church membership

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In a follow-up to a situation in Mission Presbytery that I commented on back in September, Toby Brown, in his excellent blog “A Classical Presbyterian,” updates the situation where a declared atheist was admitted to membership in St. Andrews Church in Austin.  The membership was challenged and Mission Presbytery voted to instruct St. Andrews about the standards for membership and to invalidate the specific membership.  St. Andrews appealed to the Synod of the Sun PJC.

Rev. Brown, in his recent update, details new developments.  The pivotal event is the decision by the PJC to deny the complaint and not issue an injunction.  This clears the way for the presbytery, through the Committee on Ministry, to dialog and instruct the St. Andrews’ session on these matters.  Check out Toby’s blog for all the details.

I would also add that the pastor at St. Andrews holds a non-traditional (he might say a non-western) view of the Greek word “kurios” and that it would not be properly translated as “Lord” as we would in saying “Jesus is Lord.”  If this is of interest to you check the discussion in the comments below Toby’s blog post.

Ordination Standards: Conservative Jewish Council goes for “local option”

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The announcement yesterday that the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly (the international organization of conservative rabbis) adopted three position papers (technically “answers” or “teshuvot“) on gay ordination and same-sex unions has been widely reported and I do not intend to recycle the news in a general sense.  In presbyterian teams the rabbis adopted what in PC(USA) jargon has become known as a “middle way” or “local option.”  The three statements are at odds with each other and one of the three permits gay ordination while prohibiting the sexual act of sodomy.  Which, if any, position to adopt is left up to the local rabbi or seminary.  If you want to read some of the coverage I have found detailed articles from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Combined Jewish Philanthropies, and the Jerusalem Post.

Now then, some comments from a presbyterian perspective:

First, if you are not familiar with the branches of Judaism, the “Conservative” branch is actually moderate as opposed to the traditional (and what would normally be thought of as conservative) “Orthodox” branch as opposed to the liberal “Reformed” branch.  Unlike presbyterians where orthodox is conservative and we are all reformed.  (I see a “Who’s On First” routine in here somewhere.)

Second, the Conservative branch has been losing members and whether they admit it or not there is a lot of buzz in the news stories and the blogs that this decision was influenced by that.

Third, the old “two jews three opinions” situation.  On this committee of 25 it only takes 6 affirmative votes to adopt an answer which is advisory to seminaries and congregations.  Two of the interpretations were adopted by 13 votes and the third by the six vote minimum.  You want something binding?  That would be a takanah, or an amendment to Jewish Law, as opposed to the teshuva, or interpretation.  If it takes six members to adopt an interpretation it takes the rest of the committee plus one, that is twenty, to adopt takanah.

Finally, after the meeting four rabbis opposed to gay ordination resigned from the committee and there is talk about this splitting that branch of Judaism.  There have also been interviews with prospective seminary students who are waiting for the new standards to pass and the seminaries to then adopt them so they can apply.

Reading through some of this the similarities to the situation in the PC(USA) is striking.  Did he have the PC(USA) and the Episcopals in mind when one of the pro-gay ordination members, Rabbi Elliot Dorff, president of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, said:
“We would hope that this would be a model for other
religions to learn how to deal with this topic seriously and be able to
agree to be one and yet have disagreements”
(Quoted in the Jerusalem Post article)

Updates on December 8
The Rabbinical Assembly has issued a press release on the meeting.  (Be warned, it is an MS Word file.)

The Jewish Chronicle of Pittsburgh has posted a news article which includes comments by Rabbi Alvin Berkun, president of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative movement, who was present for the discussion but not a voting member of the committee. 

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.

Another blogger’s comments on PCA leadership

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In researching an upcoming posting on this blog I have followed some interesting trails.  One of those led me to the blog “Barlow Farms,” a blog written by a member of the Presbyterian Church in America. Lots of interesting and intelligent perspective on there but one in particular, about Presbyterian polity, caught my attention.  Entitled “The Presbyterian Bishopric” and posted on November 30, it looks at a concentration of power at the national level of the PCA.  In particular, the author writes at one point:

We find ourselves in the PCA right now in a peculiar position. The same
man is moderator of the GA, chairman of the Standing Judicial
Commission, and editor of the online denominational press. In the
current Federal Vision brouhaha (a controversy about theological
positions taken by some ministers), this one person has:

1. Nominated the men who make up the investigative committee
2. Chaired the standing judicial committee that has recently forced a
presbytery to investigate one of its ministers because some other
presbytery complained about the way that a voluntary investigation of a
minister was conducted a few years ago.
3. Decided when to advertise and when not to advertise in the weekly
news email the existence of books written by pastors in the
denomination based upon the theological content of the books

By controlling the courts, the legislative branch, and the press, this one person has quite a bit of power, to say the least.

Not only does this one example suffice to demonstrate how
presbyterianism can very easily become a luscious democratic candy
shell on an episcopal chocolate filling, but there are other things we
all know to be true that illustrate our de facto episcopal system.

Got to love that visual about the candy shell and chocolate filling.

First “middle governing body” begins withdrawl process in American Episcopal Church

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There have been numerous reports of individual churches withdrawing from the American Episcopal Communion and requesting to come under the supervision of more conservative African bishops because of disagreements in ordination standards.  These withdrawals have led, like in the PC(USA), to disputes over property with a variety of different results in civil courts.

Now the Diocese of San Joaquin has voted over the weekend at their Annual Convention, by a vote of 176 to 28, to change their “Anglican Identity” to a world-wide view rather a strictly American identity.  This is the first reading and will require a second affirmative vote at the next convention.  This convention is expected to be in a year but Bishop Schofield has said that some factors could advance or delay that vote, basically challenging the American Church that if they are aggressive against the diocese the diocese will bolt earlier.  There are press releases from both the diocese and the national office.

Leading up to the convention there was an interesting exchange of letters beginning with a letter of November 20 from The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church with a response from the Bishop of San Joaquin Diocese, the Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled debates in reformed circles.

Church of Scotland Presbyteries voting against blessing same-sex unions

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Scotsman.com is reporting today that the voting by Church of Scotland presbyteries on a General Assembly action to permit ministers to bless same-sex civil partnerships is trending strongly against the action and the presbyteries will probably defeat it.  They report that at the present time only six presbyteries have voted in favor and 21 have voted against.  There are 48 presbyteries in the Church of Scotland so with 3 more needed for defeat of the GA action both sides are reportedly acknowledging defeat.  The GA approved the blessing of the partnerships until, under the barrier act, the presbyteries have voted but I don’t know if under their polity the presbytery vote becomes binding upon the next GA or at the point the vote is decisive.

Another Call for Withdrawl of Christian Students from Public Schools by PCA GA

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The Heartland Institute is reporting that the Rev. Steven Warhurst, associate pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Kingsport, Tennessee, is trying once again to bring an overture to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America that calls for, or encourages, members of that denomination to withdraw their children from public schools in favor an educational setting that allows for an education in line with their Christian faith.  For several years resolutions like this have been a staple of the Southern Baptist Convention but Rev. Warhurst’s unsuccessful attempt at last year’s PCA GA was the first for that denomination.  The movement is supported by one of the most prominent PCA pastors, The Rev. Dr. D. James Kennedy, pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Coral Gables, Florida.  The article reports that at this time the Rev. Warhurst is working on presbytery approval for his overture to GA.