Recovering the Reformed Confession, Part V

After a hiatus of a few days where I’ve been pre-occupied with other matters I’ve returned to reviewing Recovering the Reformed Confession by Dr. R. Scott Clark.

Chapter Six is entitled, “The Joy of Being Confessional.” It is an apologetic for those exploring reformed theology and the broader reformed tradition. Clark provides five solid reasons why those who might only embrace reformed soteriology ought to go farther and become reformed in a confessional sense. The chapter is pretty straightforward not requiring much additional comment.

Chapter Seven, entitled, “Recovering Reformed Worship” is another story altogether. Hands down it is the longest chapter in the book and perhaps the most controversial. The chapter begins on an ominous note with the acknowledgement that in general, worship is in trouble. This includes the worship that goes on in reformed churches. Clark zeroes in on the Regulative Principle of Worship (RPW) that ought to govern our worship practices: “(I)n stated Lord’s Day services, God may be worshiped only as he has commanded and in not other ways” (p. 228). Behind this is the view of Zacharias Ursinus who argued in his commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism that we are not free to improvise in worship but that we are bound to conduct it according to God’s commands. Clark notes that this view is largely uncontested in the reformed tradition though in his opinion it is not always faithfully followed today.

At stake in all of this is the application of ‘sola scriptura’ (Scripture alone) to the topic of worship. Following Ursinus and his exposition of the 2nd Commandment in the Heidelberg Catechism and the Westminster Assembly which drafted the Directory of Public Worship (DPW) in 1644, Clark points to these sources to prove that at its earliest stage the reformed tradition was unanimous about what should be sung in worship: God’s Word. Thus, the early reformed tradition was marked by the singing of psalms without instrumental accompaniment. He notes that this practice was uniform in the various reformed churches until Isaac Watts began paraphrasing psalms and eventually writing hymns (p. 251). In America, Presbyterians came under the influence of revivalism and by the 1830s hymns and hymnals were being introduced in many churches. Clark’s thesis is that reformed churches need to recapture this earlier practice albeit with a few modifications (sing Scripture from the New Testament as well as the Old and allow the use of instruments). This history is largely unknown among today’s reformed churches.

One weakness in this chapter is that the basis of his argument is more assumed than proven. Sure, Ursinus addressed the 2nd Commandment but aren’t there other passages of Scripture that could be brought to bear? Were there solid exegetical arguments from Scripture that led the early reformed tradition to these conclusions on the Regulative Principle of Worship? I’d like to see them. Just to assert that this was the practice of Calvin, Ursinus, and others, and therefore must be our practice begs the question. To hear that American Presbyterians have had wrong for nearly 200 years is truly depressing. As one who was not raised Protestant I thought I was doing well to be familiar with the Trinity Hymnal and using it to introduce the singing of psalms to my congregation. In light of this chapter, it truly feels as if the goal-posts have been moved.

Clark is well aware that his perspective is in the minority even in his own denomination. Additionally, many confessional folks do not agree with his interpretation of the early reformed tradition concerning worship. That said, there is much to reflect on in this chapter. Based on the voluminous footnotes there are many works I need to read to gain a fuller perspective of reformed worship.  I hope that others will do the same and not just brush off his thoughts as idealistic and unattainable.

Recovering the Reformed Confession – IV

As I continue my review of Recovering the Reformed Confession I will cover chapters 4 & 5 in this article. They are entitled, Recovering a Reformed Identity, I & II. These are the first two chapters of the section entitled, The Recovery (the first section chronicled the loss of reformed piety and practice).

Chapter 4 is devoted to the categorical distinction between God and man: i.e. the distance between God and man and the corresponding difficulty of communication between the two. This has been lost in many of today’s reformed churches. This distinction was mentioned earlier in RRC (chapter 2, The Quest for Illegitimate Religious Certainty) but finds fuller discussion here. Clark’s thesis is that much of the reformed community fails to operate from the perspective that man is God’s analogue and that God speaks to man via analogy. Central to his thesis is Deuteronomy 29:29 (The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and our children forever) and Isaiah 55:8-9 (God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and our ways are not His). Thus, QIRC reigns: “This kind of rationalism…says that we can have certainty only by knowing something that God knows, the way he knows it. If effect, we must, if only temporarily, become the Creator” (p. 133).” Again, we must remember that God’s knowledge is archetypal while man’s knowledge is ectypal (derived, revealed).

Of particular value is Clark’s historical overview beginning with Aquinas and running through Berkhof, John Murray and Cornelius Van Til, on this topic. Aquinas used the analogue/analogy language but assigned a different meaning to the terms than did Luther and Calvin. Lutherans, with their unique doctrine of Christ’s humanity, assign archetypal knowledge to Christ’s humanity, thus parting company with the reformed at this point. While the reformed confessions retained the categorical distinction as did men like John Owen, it has been downhill ever since. Sadly, Clark shows such reformed stalwarts as Francis Turretin, Charles Hodge, B.B. Warfield, and John Murray and either treat the topic with brief attention or don’t mention it all. Fortunately it was ‘recovered’ by men like Herman Bavinck, Louis Berkhof and Cornelius Van Til.

At stake in all of this is how we should expect God to relate to us. Clark summarizes nicely with these words: “The Reformed understanding of things is that we do not have immediate access to God’s being. We have mediated access through God the Son incarnate and through the preaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments” (p. 151). God has chosen to make Himself known through his Son and that is abundantly clear from Jesus’ rebuke to Philip: “He who has seen me as seen the Father” (John 14:9). In other words, if we want to see the Father we must look at Jesus. This is at the heart of Luther’s Theology of the Cross. The reformed church must recover this categorical distinction and until it does it will fall prey to the theological fads of our day.

Chapter 5 deals with an entirely different matter that is vital to the health of the reformed church: subscribing to a theological confession. A confession of faith is a theological summary of what a particular community of believers in a certain place, think the Scriptures teach. To subscribe to a confession means giving assent, agreeing with, or confessing that something is accurate. For a minister it means taking vows to teach within the parameters of a given confession. 

What follows is a detailed discussion of theological subscription and how it has played itself out in various reformed denominations. This discussion might be over the head of the average layman but for ministers in reformed churches this strikes at the heart of what is central and vital to the health of our congregations. What separates the URCNA from the CRC and the RCA? How they relate to the Three Forms of Unity. What accounts for the differences between the PCA, the EPC and PC-USA? How they related to the Westminster Standards. The core issue is what role to the confessions play in the life of the church? For those on the liberal end of things the confessions are historical relics. For those who are theological moderates, the confessions are advisory. For those who are termed conservative, the confessions are the boundary markers for what can or cannot be taught in the church.

That said, not all within the PCA, the OPC or the United Reformed Church of North America agree with what constitutes faithful subscription.  Thus, a given presbytery or classis may grant certain exceptions to the confession or simply allow for more than one interpretation of a particular propositional statement.  Complicating the matter is the topic of Clark’s third chapter, Quest for Illegitimate Religious Certainty, (QIRC): a given presbytery may refuse to grant a common exception granted elsewhere or it might become very dogmatic about a secondary issue (i.e. length of creation days).  Thus, in the end the confession begins to resemble Swiss Cheese. 

Clark proposes a bold solution: write a new confession of faith that will address the theological questions of our day while overcoming the antiquated language of earlier confessions. After all, the Westminster Standards are over 350 years old while the Three Forms of Unity are even older. All were crafted in a particular place and time to faithfully summarize the faith and deal with the theological issues of their day. Clark notes that there were multiple reformed confessions of faith drafted in the first one hundred years of the Reformation. Why? He writes, “They did so because that is that what Reformed churches did. They understood something that we have forgotten: the faith must be confessed anew in every generation and in every place, or it will be lost or deformed” (p. 184). 

To me this statement captures well the tensions within my own denomination on a host of theological issues. While some in the PCA marvel at our church planting success and overall growth since our beginning in 1973, I see a gnawing hollowness to our success. Part of it is driven by our ‘good-faith subscription’ and part is driven by a loss of reformed piety and practice. The former is reflected in the variety of views on justification by faith alone and the role of women. The latter manifests itself in an increasing number of PCA churches that are broadly evangelical with the only reformed distinctive being their form of government.

Can a new confession be crafted? Certainly. Will it be drafted anytime soon? Probably not. In my own denomination there are many who will not tamper with the Westminster Standards in the least. Some are those who believe in strict subscription (no exceptions) while others are happy with the current arrangement of allowing exceptions that do not strike at the vitals of the reformed faith. Outside of these camps there are not enough people to carry the day. 

This leaves me torn because I see my denomination slipping. In our rush to plant churches and reach the lost we are not stopping to ask if those sort of churches are worth planting. In many presbyteries ‘confessional’ churches find themselves outnumbered. Worse, sometimes a presbytery permits a ‘progressive’ church to be planted practically on top of a confessional church. Thus you have two churches in the same denomination ‘competing’ with one another being separated by just a couple of miles. While ‘good faith’ subscription, as practiced in the PCA sounds good, it is producing a schizophrenic denomination that is finding it increasingly difficult to speak with one voice on the confession, reformed worship, piety and practice.

Recovering the Reformed Confession – III

Chapter 3 of RCC is entitled, The Quest for Illegitimate Religious Experience (also known by the abbreviation, QIRE). Clark defines QIRE as the attempt to “experience God apart from the mediation of word and sacrament” (p 72). Here he puts his finger on an issue that practically knows no ecclesiastical bounds. Believers, regardless of their tradition, want an unmediated experience with the Almighty. Some seek it through signs, others through the ‘still, small voice,’ others through repetitive praise choruses, and others through Pentecostal signs and wonders.

Clark argues that the root of QIRE is Pietism – that movement of the 16th and 17th centuries that focused on ‘heart religion.’ Historical figures in Europe were Count Nikilaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf and Philipp Jakob Spener. Both were involved with the Moravian Church. The Moravians were known for sending out missionaries and some of them came to America. In fact, John Wesley first encountered them when he sailed to America to do mission work among the Indians. He saw their vibrant faith and upon returning to England after his failed mission work he made contact with the Moravians and came to faith through their ministry. Pietism influenced the first Presbyterians in American and shaped the first Presbyterian school founded to train ministers, The Log College. It was led by William Tennent and later by his son Gilbert Tennent.

For much of the chapter Clark explores the roots of pietism that extend throughout evangelicalism. He discusses the Tennent’s along with the big names associated with the First Great Awakening in America – Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield. This analysis also includes a discussion of revival and its marks. Others who are analyzed include D. Martyn Lloyd Jones, J.I. Packer and Ian Murray. The latter has written a book entitled, Revival and Revivalism, in which he defends the First Great Awakening in America as biblically authentic in contrast to the Second Great Awakening which was deficient in its theology and its methods. Clark doesn’t buy that distinction and provides a lengthy analysis why. He also explains the divide that occurred at that time in American Presbyterianism over this issue – Old Side vs. New Side. Some might complain that he is unfair, i.e. that ‘his ox is goring their sacred cow,’ but his analysis is solid and worth considering. For me it entailed ‘un-learning’ a lot of what I was taught in my seminary classes concerning American Presbyterianism.

Personally I found his comments about Jonathan Edwards enlightening. While many of the new ‘Calvinists’ rally around Edwards as their hero I have chosen to keep him at arm's length.  It is no secret that Edwards did not hold (subscribe) to any particular reformed confession. Thus, his agreement with reformed soteriology, was a good thing, but his refusal to be bound by a reformed confession led to other problems as Clark points out (pp. 84-85). Most notably Edwards advocated something akin to ‘divinization,’ along with ‘continued creation.’ He struggled with the classic view of justification by faith alone through Christ alone. He also questioned original sin. These theological flaws combined with his focus on revival make him someone that confessional reformed folk ought to think twice about before calling him their ‘homeboy.’

The chapter ends with Clark comparing the marks of revival to the marks of the church true and the piety that flows from those marks. He demonstrates that the proponents of revival have erected a straw man when speaking about ‘vital religion’ (p. 114). If one has ever seriously read the Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession they would instantly see that there is nothing cold or sterile about them. They were written to strengthen believers during the Spanish Inquisition when the Roman Catholic Church sought to suppress the young, Protestant Church. Both documents ooze pastoral concern and with heartfelt religion. Both set forth a profound piety based on Word and Sacrament that far and away exceeds the fruits of revivalism.

Some might write Clark off as a crank, but I would caution against that approach. As mentioned in my first post, Clark’s footnotes are voluminous. So, before dismissing him one ought to carefully read his arguments AND his sources.

Recovering the Reformed Confession, II

Chapter 2 of RCC is entitled, The Quest for Illegitimate Religious Certainty (also known by the abbreviation, QIRC). Clark defines QIRC as “The pursuit to know God in ways he has not revealed himself and to achieve epistemic and moral certainty of questions where such certainty is neither possible nor desirable” (p. 39). Put differently, QIRC is an attempt to find certainty in the Scriptures on any given topic when, in fact, the Scriptures might not speak to that question or might only speak in oblique or muted terms. At root is the distinction between God and humans. God is the archetype, the original: He knows Himself and all things perfectly. Humans are His analogues: we know only what He chooses to reveal to us. His knowledge is archetypal (original, perfect and exhaustive): our knowledge is ectypal (revealed and less than exhaustive).

In this chapter Clark provides three examples of how QIRC affects the modern reformed church: “the six day, twenty-four hour interpretation of Genesis 1…, theonomy, and covenant moralism” (p. 41). He also argues that QIRC is an outgrowth of fundamentalism (p. 44). This is the outworking of the movement known as Biblicism which undercuts our creeds and confessions while also interpreting Scripture in isolation from the rest of the church.

Clark spends fifteen pages explaining how the 6 day/24 hour view of creation has become a test of orthodoxy in the contemporary reformed church and how that is not necessarily a good thing. He explains that this view arose in Seventh Day Adventism and when applied in reformed churches “it threatens to let the wrong people in and keep the right people out” (p. 49). He notes that if this view becomes a test of orthodoxy then men like Charles Hodge, B.B. Warfield, Herman Bavinck and J. Gresham Machen would be excluded. He also shows that these men arrived at their views of creation via exegetical considerations of the texts of Scripture and none of them argued that the 6/24 view of creation was the only way of interpreting Genesis 1.

In the rest of the chapter Clark discusses theonomy and covenant moralism, albeit, with less ink devoted to each subject than 6/24 creation. In the end he shows how proponents of each view go beyond both Scripture and the reformed confession in their beliefs.

One thing should be clear: these three topics are not the only examples of where QIRC has made inroads into the reformed church.  The reader of RRC ought to think carefully about how and where QIRC shows up and is used as a test of orthodoxy or to silence debate. 

It is worth noting that the root of QIRC is Biblicism: reading Scripture in isolation from the way the Church has read Scripture and understood it. Thus, the danger of QIRC is being dogmatic on matters when, in fact, the Scriptures might not speak so clearly. Clark is right to warn us of this danger and point us back to our own confessions and those who have faithfully expounded them for guidance.

Recovering the Reformed Confession, Part I

Last month, while convalescing after a brief hospital stay, I began reading Recovering the Reformed Confession by Dr. R. Scott Clark. He teaches church history and historical theology at Westminster Seminary in Southern California. This is part of one of several posts that I will make on this subject. In this post I will limit my comments to Chapter One.

The book opens with a question: “What ever happened to reformed theology, piety and practice?” The author carefully defines the word, ‘reformed’, in terms that are broader and deeper than is commonly understood today: “I contend that the word denotes a confession, a theology, piety, and practice, that are well known and well defined and summarized in ecclesiastically sanctioned and binding documents” (p. 3). Those documents are the Three Forms of Unity (Heidelberg Catechism, Belgic Confession, and the Canons of Dort) along with the Westminster Confession of Faith and its Larger and Shorter Catechisms. Closely related to these documents are the writings of those who have understood and faithfully expounded those confessions: Calvin, Ursinus, Owen, Turretin, Hodge, Berkhof, Machen, etc. And flowing from those documents is a settled tradition of piety and practice that isn’t always followed today.

What follows this introduction is a historical survey showing how the term ‘reformed’ has been applied in ways not consistent with this basic definition. Clark begins by navigating his way through the debates of interpreting Scripture in light of tradition (some argue that the reformed confessions are an impediment to interpreting Scripture). He cites Heiko Oberman and Richard Muller to show how the reformed tradition avoids the error of The Council of Trent which allows the interpretation of Scripture to be controlled by its own tradition. Clark, following Machen, argues that the confessions do not prevent doctrinal progress because we do not place the confessions above the Scriptures.

In light of this Clark mentions two modern foes to confessional Protestantism: Biblicism and Pietism. Biblicism is the attempt to understand Scripture apart from creeds and confessions. It uses the same terminology but assigns different definitions to those terms. It often reads Scripture “in isolation from the Christian tradition” (p. 19). Pietism is an attempt to have biblical faith without systematic theology (i.e. creeds and confessions). Both movements intentionally read Scripture without the benefit of the insights of the historical church. Both treat the Bible as if it fell from the sky yesterday and they were the first to discover it. One need not look far to see both movements alive and well in the modern evangelical church. Moreover, both movements have made significant inroads into the reformed church.

Clark also addresses those who pit Calvin against Calvinism by arguing that Calvin’s followers didn’t really understand the man and his theology. He shows how men like John Frame and Cornelius Van Til have contributed to this controversy either intentionally or unintentionally. Some might find fault with Clark at this point but one should note that he is not alone in these conclusions.

One of the strengths of Clark’s book are his voluminous footnotes: in chapter one there are more than 125 footnotes! That alone gives the work credibility for it shows that he has read widely and deeply. Admittedly, Chapter One is a high level overview and might be hard for some to follow. However, that should not serve as an excuse to avoid the book, especially for any reformed minister. 

More posts to follow…