Matt Branagh at CT quotes some folks who say WC is making a fundamental shift, but the evidence from the “Reveal” study isn’t so clear cut. A fundamental shift at WC would for them to abandon their dated, failed, seeker model (in other words repent) and to embrace a Christ-centered, means of grace oriented approach to ministry of Word and sacrament. According one person quoted here whenever WC has attempted to introduce the least bit of substance to their morning services attendance suffers.

Good thing Jesus never said anything unpleasant or he might have been really unpopular. Oh wait a minute. He did and he got crucified for it. Well, that’ll never sell.

Has WC really changed? No. Have they abandoned a market-driven approach to ministry? No. What’s their plan for those who want to grow and become more mature in the faith? They plan to teach them to be “self-feeders.”

Yes, I think Jesus said something like that.

“Peter, if you love me, teach my sheep to feed themselves.

‘Peter do you love me? Teach my sheep to be self-feeders’

‘Peter, do you love me?”  ’You know I do Lord.’ ‘Teach my sheep to be self-feeders.’”

(revised and re-posted from 7 May ‘07. This post was occasioned by the announcement of the conversion of the now former president of ETS, Francis Beckwith, to Rome).

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…Cornelius Van Til used to write about Mr White (the confessionally Reformed fellow), Mr Black (the Roman Catholic fellow) and Mr Gray (or Grey; the Arminian fellow). His point was that, on some issues, the Arminian is living in a sort of half-way house between what he regarded as genuinely evangelical and Protestant theology and Rome. It seems that evangelicalism (if the “ism” even exists any longer; Hart raises serious doubts about that) is becoming more gray by the moment. Many evangelicals substantively agree with Rome on a number of issues that used to the dividing line between “evangelicals” and Rome. Most importantly, many so-called evangelicals agree with Rome that we are justified because and to the degree we are sanctified. They agree with Rome that faith justifies because it is formed (made a reality) by love (Spirit-wrought sanctity).

If “evangelical” is defined solely by “a personal encounter with the risen Christ” then why not become Roman? The Roman communion has always embraced this idea. Roman Christians routinely invite Jesus into their heart. Many Roman Christians also want to take back America for Christ. They want to transform the culture. They read their bibles privately and pray. Indeed, they invented the “still, small voice” and the quiet time (they call it “spiritual discipline”). Most evangelicals are pragmatists when it comes to church polity. Well, Rome is, as they say, “already there.” Rome invented the hierarchical/episcopal organizational structure that many evangelicals think of as efficient and effective. The real question may not be, “Oh my, why did Francis Beckwith become Roman Catholic?” but rather, “Why don’t more evangelicals become Roman Catholic?” For what good reasons do they resist? Half-way houses are meant to be places of temporary refuge.

That said, I’m not anxious to see a wave of conversions to Rome. I genuinely hope and pray that evangelicals will wake up and smell the Wittenberg beer. I hope they will realize that modern evangelicalism has only the most tenuous relations to the Reformation. I hope they will stop assuming that what they are being taught and teaching has anything to do with the faith of Luther, Calvin, and Francis Turretin and that such a realization will make them hungry to investigate the Reformation and Protestant orthodoxy for themselves.

There are viable alternatives to Wheaton, Rome, Constantinople, and the Emergent Village. Have these peripatetic evangelicals ever really visited Heidelberg, Geneva, or Edinburgh or do they simply assume an identity between the Reformation and their fundamentalist past? Do they simply assume an identity between whatever they don’t like (e.g. the Reformation) and modernist foundationalism? If that’s the case, and it seems as if that’s what’s happening, they should re-consider. Despite the repeated and self-serving claims by post-conservative types, the Reformation was not “modernist” or “foundationalist” or anything of the like. The Reformers began with divine revelation not human experience or autonomous rationality. I just saw where one post-conservative fellow is calling virtually everyone who ever believed that Christians can have certainty “Cartesians,” including Rick Lints and Cornelius Van Til. Now this is not only a sure sign that this learned cat has not ever read Van Til (was there ever a more consistent critic of Descartes than CVT) or Lints, of if he has he has misunderstood them completely) but also a sign that evangelicals that knew not Henry are becoming incredibly facile and superficial in their assessment of the Christian tradition. If beginning with divine revelation makes one a foundationalist then the entire Christian has been foundationalist and I’m one of ‘em too. Of course that’s just silly talk. It’s one thing for a creature to begin with “I am” and quite another for a creature to begin with “God is.”

One other note concerning the rhetoric in the discussion that will surely ensue. Please, however oxymoronic, let us speak of Roman Catholics. The confessional Reformed Churches do not cede the term “catholic” to Rome. We have always insisted that the great sin of the Council of Trent was that it wasn’t truly catholic (universal) at all. Indeed, many of the decisions taken at Trent were sectarian. Chief among those sectarian decisions was their condemnation of the gospel of justification sola gratia, sola fide.

In the past I’ve said, “I’m not an evangelical.” Students have rightly challenged me about this. How can I contend for the adjective “catholic” and give up the adjective “evangelical”? Fair enough. Confessional Reformed folk are both catholic and evangelical properly understood. Henceforth I won’t concede the adjective “catholic” to Rome or the adjective “evangelical” to Cane Ridge/Northampton. Reformed folk are, properly understood, catholic and evangelical. We’re not Roman and we’re not “evangelicals” in the modern (post 1720s) sense, but we are catholic and evangelical.

The question comes:

I once heard someone say (or write) that the Law was also “graceful” because at least in this God’s case, He was letting His subjects know what was expected and wanted from them.

I appreciate the intent of the sentiment. There are two problems here. First is the semantic problem. The English language is a little limited here. We use gift, grace, and favor, as synonyms. If we could distinguish “gift” from “grace” and “favor,” then we might be able to speak that way. What we need is a word that connotes something freely given that is isn’t necessarily saving and, in some cases is beneficial but not all. The word “benefit” does this.

The second problem is the pervasive and persistent problem that some Reformed and would-be Reformed folk have, in reacting to antinomianism, of conflating grace and law. This is the more serious 

Rather than speaking of the grace of the law, it would be better to speak as the Westminster Confession does. The Westminster divines (theologians) did not confess that the covenant of works was “a covenant of grace,” or “a covenant of favor,” nor did they say that God “graciously” instituted the covenant of works. Rather they said (7:1) that God established the covenant of works by “voluntary condescension.” In other words, rather than appealing to the nature of the law they appealed to God’s exercise of his free will.

WCF ch. 16 summarizes the Reformed doctrine of good works and there we do not find the law called a grace or gracious. Chapter 19 is devoted the the Law of God. If the confession is going to speak of the grace of the law anywhere, it would be there. Yet, in WCF 19.3, it says that God “was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a church under age….” As in chapter 7, they appealed to traditional Reformed language concerning the will of God.

WCF 20.7 is a model for relating grace and law when it says,

Neither are the forementioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the gospel, but do sweetly comply with it; the Spirit of Christ subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely, and cheerfully, which the will of God, revealed in the law, requireth to be done.

Here grace and law are related closely and carefully without being identified. The law isn’t called a “grace” or even “gift.” It does say that the law is complementary to the gospel. There’s no doubt that the moral law is a benefit to Christians inasmuch as it is that Word God the Spirit uses, in its first or pedagogical use, to teach us the greatness of our sin and misery and to drive us to Christ. It does this before we come to faith and it does it after we come to faith (HC 2-3, 115). In its civil use, it is a benefit inasmuch as it reveals, in the second table, God’s moral will for civil, public life. It is a benefit to believers in the third use as it guides our new lives in Christ. To deny the third use of the law is antinomianism. To conflate the law with the gospel is moralism. If we read God’s Word with the Reformed churches it isn’t that difficult to avoid both of these pitfalls.

Since Christ has delivered us believers from the curse of the law it no longer terrifies us relative to our righteousness before God. Since we are free from the curse and condemnation we are free to delight in God’s law and to see its wisdom and perfections.

Nevertheless, in this life we still sin and suffer the consequences and subjective effects of sin. We rightly feel guilty and ashamed of our continuing sins and sinfulness and the law offers us no remedy for sin, its guilt, or its consequences nor does it sanctify. Only the gospel provides those remedies. Only the gospel sanctifies.

Thus, as much as we might be tempted to react to antinomianism by speaking of the “grace of the law,” we should not. It’s better to speak of the benefits of the law. It is notable that the Westminster Divines, who also faced a significant threat of antinomianism in their day, did not react by conflating “grace” and “law,” not even to make a rhetorical point. In that case we should follow the example of the divines and exercise the same degree of self-control and continue to make the same distinctions.

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Revised and re-posted from May of ‘07

It’s a beautiful thing:

Wes has good thoughts on the sacred duty of subscribing the Reformed confessions.

Info here (HT: Alejandro Moreno Morrison)

In light of the current White Horse Inn series on the necessity, importance, and usefulness of doctrine and apologetics for the church and the Christian life, it seemed like a good idea to point you to this golden oldie from MR in 1996.

Or you might find yourself hauled before some bizarre committee and disciplined (HT: Selwyn Duke). This student was disciplined for reading a history of the KKK. What if he had been actually researching archival KKK publications?