We must not weary

There is a discussion going on over at Greenbaggins about the Federal Vision. The discussion is about whether or not critics of the Federal Vision ever understand the Federal Vision. But that is not what I want to talk about. The author (a friend of mine for full disclosure) the following comment:

You know, this is so amazingly tiring. This is why I am so tired of the whole wretched debate.

This is the comment that worries me. The Federal Vision was a hot topic for several years, worthy of a good round of debates. But now it is working its way through the often contentious church court system, and these power struggles make people weary. “This committee report is wrong”, “This committee is stacked and unfair”, and “Do I have to read another 40 plus page report and debate it on the floor of Classis?” all are wearisome to be sure. It naturally leads to feelings of wanting it all to go away and be settled once and for all. However, that will never be. This debate is around for the long haul. The Federal Vision already controls an entire denomination that has become a safe haven for those who practice the FV theology. Many churches in multiple denominations are spouting this theology. It is not something that is going to just go away. Weariness leads to acceptance for the sake of peace. Let me use a few historical examples.

The Reformed Church in the United States is a perfect example. The debate between Mercersburg and the Old Reformed began to really heat up around 1844. It was mostly in print and not a lot of church court work was done. It began to heat up in the church courts in 1854, and not counting a small time of unity when the focus was on another subject, the debate raged until 1878 when weariness won out. Nothing was solved, only a way to keep the peace was found. People often confuse the too. Finding a way to keep the peace is not the same as solving the problem. A Peace Committee came back with some proposals that asked both sides to give a little something up, but did not take any doctrinal stands one way or the other. Of course this really made the Mercersburg Side victorious and forty years later the Reformed Church merged with a Lutheran denomination except a small remnant in the Dakotas.

Another great example is the Great Awakening and the Presbyterian Church. In 1741, the New Side broke away from the Old Side and each created a competing Synod. Harsh words were exchanged and ministers felt “vexed to death” by the intrusions and disruptions in the church. In 1746, the Old Side Synod of Philadelphia lost an entire Presbytery to the New Side as the tension continued. Yet, by 1758 the weariness had set in. The two sides met, reunited on a Plan of Union without settling any theological debates. A few practical rules were laid in place and the two became one. Yet, within three years the same debate raged through the newly created joint Synod. The 1760’s are full of Presbyteries being demolished and Old Siders being placed so they remain minorities thanks to the New Side majority in the new Synod. Presbyteries split because of theology, and one presbytery withdrew completely. It was so bad that the Old Siders were again about to make their own Synod, and were in Britain raising money for it, when the American Revolution began. This unified feelings for a time. During the War the Old Side leaders died off, the British destroyed the Old Side ministerial institution, and the Old Side vanished. By 1788 they are a footnote in opposition to the formation of the General Assembly.

One could go on forever and discuss the Princeton conflict of the 1920’s and probably find hundreds of other examples where weariness won out over theology. This can never be allowed to happen in a debate that is of importance. Keeping or restoring the peace is not the same as solving the problem. Too often the church or at least church leaders weary of the disharmony and attempt to restore harmony by finding the quickest way to peace rather than deal with the theological issues head on. The RCUS wearied, instituted peace, and within a generation was on its way to becoming the United Churches of Christ, a very liberal denomination. The Old Side wearied, joined without theological union, and (in my opinion) instituted the fundamental tension between revivalism and confessionalism that directly led to the Old School/New School split of the 1800’s and in some ways still plagues the PCA and OPC today. The Church is called to be a pillar of truth and constantly remind people of the gospel. There are times we get tired and do tedious work, but we must never weary of presenting the gospel not only to those who are lost, but to those who err as well.

(I feel that I should add, I do not think that Mr. Baggins is advocating quitting, but his expression was a nice jumping off point.)

Mercersburg and the Church

The concept of the Church in Mercersburg is intertwined with the rest of theology, but we can see a few important features that differ from Reformed theology. Without any systematic theologies, we are left to put together the Mercersburg Theology for ourselves using the broad outlines given in Nevin’s letter describing the tenants of Mercersburg Theology. The theory of the church is perhaps best seen in Nevin’s Vindication of the Revised Liturgy. In this booklet we see Nevin using the foci of being objective and historical to drive his view of the church. The subjective, or not physical, seems to really bother Nevin and his theory allows him to make the Gospel objective in nature rather than subjective. I think all can agree that Jesus Christ was real and historical that what the gospel says is true and thus it is objective, but Nevin goes on to state that it would not pass out of the realm of existence. Enter the church into his theology. Nevin states

It is not enough for this purpose, to have memories only of what was once such a real presence in the world. ("Vindication" Catholic and Reformed: Writings of John W. Nevin, pg. 378)

This is where Nevin goes to ‘the Creed’, by which he means the Apostles’ Creed. He views the creed not as propositions but as describing the progress of grace in the world. Thus, for Nevin the place of the Holy Catholic Church in the Creed is essential. Nevin claims the church then is after the Incarnation as a necessary consequence of it, and is the only way in which the Holy Spirit can work. He openly avows the church as an article of faith, which ‘we believe in order to understand’.

If we are to hold fast the objective, historical character of what this work was first, and still continues to be, in His own Person, it cannot be allowed to lose itself in the agency of the Spirit under a general view; it must, necessarily, involve for us the conception of a special sphere; this likewise objective and historical; within which only (and not in the world at large), the Holy Ghost of the Gospel is to be regarded as working. This is the Church. (Ibid., 378)

If one remembers the Apostles’ Creed you will remember that the Holy Catholic Church comes between the Holy Ghost and the Forgiveness of Sins. Nevin argues that this placement is purposeful and a progression; thus, the Church must come before the forgiveness of sins.

So far as this goes, of course, it owns and confesses that the Church is a medium of communication between Christ and His people. They must be in the order of His grace, in the sphere where this objective working of His grace is actually going forward, and not in the order of nature, where it is not going forward at all (but where Satan reigns and has his own way), if the work of redemption and sanctification is to be carried forward in them with full effect. (Ibid., 380)

He goes on to explain how such a churchly theology must give a sacramental theology and that must give a liturgical theology. That can be left for another post, I think we have enough here to discuss already. I would like to make a few observations before opening up for comments.

The first observation is that the Heidelberg Catechism does not follow the understanding of Nevin. It seems to treat the Creed as a serious of propositions rather than a historical development as Nevin held. It also speaks of the Holy Catholic Church in Q54.

That the Son of God, from the beginning to the end of the world, gathers, defends, and preserves to himself, by His Spirit and word, out of the whole human race, a church, chosen to everlasting life, agreeing in true faith; and that I am, and forever shall remain, a living member thereof.

There is no indication of the Church standing between the people of God and Christ, rather it is simply the gathering of those people. Ursinus goes on under this question to discuss the idea of the invisible church, which the objective-historical Nevin rejects in his formulation. Ursinus does say that there is no salvation outside of the church, but rather than claiming this is because the Church is the medium of grace he states it this way:

Because those whom God has chosen to the end, which is eternal life, them he has also chosen to the means, which consist in the inward and outward call. Hence although the elect are not always members of the visible church, yet they all become such before they die.

Ursinus indicates there is no salvation outside of the church because God’s elect will always join the church. The phrase ‘no salvation outside of the church’ for Ursinus seems directed against those who want to claim salvation and remain apart from God’s people, rather than granting some special powers to the church over ‘redemption and sanctification’ as Nevin argues.

Second, Nevin’s historical argument from the Apostles’ Creed and the placement of the Holy Catholic Church is wrong. The ‘Holy Catholic Church’ phrase is not found where it is before the 3rd Century. The Antiochene churches omitted it completely, and Fulgentius places it at the end of the Creed. One also finds versions from Priscillian that put it prior to the Holy Spirit. These arguments undermine the extensive use of the Creed in Nevin’s argument (in fact many accused Nevin of placing the Apostles’ Creed above the Bible).

Of course there is much more to the view of the church of Schaff and Nevin, but it is time to open the post up for comments.

Why I do not live in the UK

The Confessing Evangelical explains why it is better for me to remain in the states than to take my chances with English officials.

Happy Thanksgiving

One of the things I love about Herreid, SD is the fact that we still get together on Thanksgiving. How many churches have a worship service on Thanksgiving? President George Washington asked people to give thanks to God, and ask pardon for transgressions, and I believe that practice is still followed today. Thanksgiving is set aside by the government for people to return thanks. The church should take such calls by the state seriously. We do too often have a tendency toward individualism, and Thanksgiving is no different. When the State asks the people to give thanks to God and ask for pardon, should not the church answer with a 'yes'. Shouldn't this be done corporately? We ought to do this around our dinner tables, but we ought to do it as a church too. Just a Thanksgiving thought. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

P.S. I hope to have some more posts up today or tomorrow.

Neo-Mercersburgism or Old Romanism

I have long been stating that the current Federal Vision discussion is really the same discussion had by RCUS with Mercersburg theologians, primarily Philip Schaff and John Nevin. A new blog aids my point while inventing a new name (of which I am jealous),Neo-Mercersburgism. They call for a revival of six points of Mercersburg Theology. Here is number 1.

1. The primary life giving principle in the life of a Christian is the ministry of the Church; the Sacraments, the Word proclaimed, and fellowship in the body of Christ.

This statement does accurately reflect Mercersburg theology, and I think also shows why we need to reject Neo-Mercersburgism, just as we need to reject paleo-Mercerburgism. There is a lot to unpack in this statement, such as the placement of Sacraments before the Word, a very non-traditional ordering of the two, and very illuminating as well. However, the main point that needs to be noticed is that the "primary life giving principle" for the Christian is not Jesus Christ. In Neo-Mercersburgism, anything that we gain from Christ must be conveyed to us by the Church. Listen to the tract written by a Professor at Lancaster (a strong hold of old Mercersburg) last century.

All the benefits of Christ are received, not by faith, not through previous knowledge of our misery, not in the way of repentance and faith, but through baptism, and through baptism exclusively.

Here we see the idea that the primary life giving principle is not Jesus, nor faith, nor even faith plus repentance. It is baptism. The Christian is not to turn to Jesus for life, but to the church. I do not believe that I am overstating. For proof let us look no further than the third point of Neo-Mercersburgism.

3. The holy Eucharistic is the tie which (sic) binds together all believers in Jesus Christ throughout time and space.

What binds us together as believers? Is it all being members of the body of Christ? Is it the Holy Spirit? Is it the same Lord? Or the same faith? Is it even being baptized into the same God? According to Neo-Mercersburgism what binds believers together in Christ is the Eucharist. One should probably also unpack this statement as John Nevin would do and notice the claim that we are bound “in Jesus Christ”. The Eucharist is not mainly a way to bind us with other Christians, but a way to bind us in Christ. Our mystical union with Jesus makes our mystical union with each other. But that mystical union is not achieved through faith, but rather through the Eucharist, just as his benefits are not received by faith, but rather through baptism. Neo-Mercersburgism has supplanted faith with sacrament, and the Holy Spirit with the Church. Neo-Mercersburgism makes the comfort of the believer belonging to the church and taking the sacraments rather than belonging to Jesus Christ and having faith in Him. In this regard, Neo-Mercersburgism looks a lot like Old Romanism.

The Pundits win

Wow. I was wrong. It is obvious that I do not know much about national politics. So after tonight, I may just have to shut my mouth about politics on this blog. However, I will make three comments. Two about national politics and one about local politics.

1. This election illustrates that the North and South are still quite divided in many ways. The Democratic pick-ups were in the north, traditional blue states. They took Rhode Island and Pennsylvania Senate seats, and several House seats from Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut and one in New Hampshire. They did not do so well in the south with Florida being a grand example. Democrats were hoping for 4 to 6 seats in Florida, but ended up with only two. They narrowly held on to two seats in Georgia. Plus, they are recounting a narrow possible senate victory in Virginia, where the Republican candidate ran an awful campaign embarrassing himself several times, and they failed to win a House seat they were hoping to win. The other big indicator of what a divide exists between north and south was the MSNBC coverage of those races. How many times the pundits and Chris Mathews called the Tennessee voters racist for not voting for Harold Ford made me sick. Yet, the people of Maryland were never accused of being racist, nor were the people of South Dakota who handily defeated a Native American candidate for the House. A divide in the minds of the MSNBC hosts existed and comments like Mr. Mathews made do nothing but promote the divide. Will Southerners ever like Northerners when they regularly defeat African American candidates for Senate with no name-calling, and then when the South defeats one the name-calling flies? Probably not.

2. The Republicans cost themselves this election. Several stupid scandals hurt them. They lost Delay’s seat, Ney’s seat, and Foley’s seat because of well-publicized scandals. Heath Shuler also won North Carolina House seat 11 because his opponent had some scandals as well. The state Republican party in Ohio had about five scandals running at once that probably hurt Senator Dewine, but the Democrats failed to capitalize doing much worse than many thought in Ohio. They picked up one seat when most thought they would pick up four. Mainly, however, I think Republicans can blame the President and Karl Rove for the loss. I am not talking about Iraq. I am talking about the ‘toe-the-President’s-line-or-else-attitude.’ This hurt Republicans especially because his line is not conservative at all. The President and the RNC abandoned the poor guy running for the Senate in Connecticut in favor of Joe Lieberman who votes liberal Democratic almost 90% of the time, but is strong on the war. Take what happened in Arizona for example. The Bush backed candidate in Republican primaries in AZ House seat 8 lost to a strong boarder defense candidate. The RNC publicly announced they would not support him with any money. I do not think they even endorsed him. That is giving away one seat because of a disagreement with the President. They did little to help J.D. Hayworth in AZ 05, who was also a critic of the President’s immigration policy. Both seats will now be filled by Democrats who will probably pass the amnesty plan Bush wants. I think that there is a giant rift in the Republican Party, and Bush’s Boys are running the show, and they maybe running it into the ground.

3. Locally here in South Dakota, the Abortion ban lost. It lost because I think the Republican turnout was low. I could be wrong, but I am quite surprised at the margin of defeat. This bill overwhelmingly passed the State Legislature, which at least indicates the State Representatives thought it would be popular. The Vote Yes pro-life group did a very bad job running the campaign. They seemed to concentrate on door to door, meet your neighbor, House Parties. That did not get the job done. They also did not campaign on being pro-life, but rather they spoke only about how abortion hurt women. A rather disappointing stance. About three weeks before the election the Vote No crowd bombarded the airwaves with lies and propaganda. It was never really answered. The Vote No group did not argue that abortion was wrong. They argued that it was wrong to make women of rape or incest have children, claiming there was no exception for those women. This was untrue. There was an exception. Those who suffered rape or incest could go to the doctor and take the morning after pill. Thus, they had about a 14 day window to get something done. By the way, I think the exception is bad. I do not think people that have rape or incest should be allowed abortions or morning after pills. Polls showed that if people had known about the exception they would have voted 63% for the bill. The other thing that I believe hurt this bill was the supposedly non-biased Attorney General’s explanation that appeared on the official documents put out by the state on the amendments and initiated measures. The Attorney General made sure to note that this law would be challenged, go to the Supreme Court, and possibly stick the state of South Dakota with a large legal bill. It was an underhanded thing to put on a ‘non-biased’ official explanation sheet.

So, I did not beat any pundits and showed my true ignorance. However, I did enjoy seeing what I hope to be the new face of the Democratic Party. Harold Ford impressed me with his open quoting of Scripture and discussion of Jesus Christ. Jim Casey promises to be a pro-life vote. While I find politics fun and entertaining, it is good to remember that the fortunes of political parties has nothing to do with the church.

Jephthah and his Daughter

Recently I began a study of the book of Judges. It is a book of the Bible I have often felt is too much ignored. It seems to be one of those ‘historical books of the OT’ that many are want to pass over. Even Calvin in his commentary writing skipped over Judges. What has caught my attention is how much commentators want to make the Judges look like really bad people. In fact the unifying theory of most of the commentaries is that the Judges get worse and worse as time goes on. With this I think I now have to disagree.

Let us take Jephthah for example. Chapter 11 of the Judges gives us the famous example of Jephthah and his daughter raising the question, did Jephthah sacrifice his daughter. I have to admit I came to this text expecting to find Jephthah sacrificing his daughter because I was always taught that ‘those who argue that the daughter was dedicated to temple service are just trying to sanitize the Biblical text.’ Most commentators jump at the chance to make Jephthah a murder. But few stop there. K. Lawson Younger Jr., author of the NIV Application Commentary on Judges not only argues for a sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter, but argues it is not a sacrifice to Jehovah, but rather a sacrifice to Chemosh, the god of just defeated by his armies. Daniel Block in his commentary on Judges says several times that those who argue for temple dedication and service are “overestimating Jephthah’s spirituality.”

But wait, does not Hebrews 11 include Jephthah as a member of the Hall of Faith? Can we overestimate the spirituality of someone God himself puts forth as an example of faith? If Jephthah sacrificed his daughter, or worshipped Chemosh, why is he in the Hall of Faith? What makes these declarations worse is that both commentators mentioned above recognize the previous story in chapter 11, where Jephthah negotiates with the Ammonites, shows tremendous knowledge of Numbers 20-21 and Deuteronomy 2. Does this familiarity with Scripture not show he is no mere "brigand" or worshipper of Chemosh? Jephthah demonstrates himself familiar with Scripture and with the history of Israel, but then sacrifices his daughter? The law provided a way out of rash vows. Would one familiar with God’s prohibition on human sacrifice not avail himself of the out provided by the law? These things do not make sense to me. The arguments for temple dedication are not far fetched. It fits better with the reaction the daughter, and does not violate the sense of his vow. It also fits better with the passage in Hebrews where Jephthah is commended for his faith. So then should we not take this charitable reading of Jephthah? I have to wonder, why are we in such a hurry to make the Judges into sinners rather than saints?