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| Home > Theology > The Present Controversy: Part 3, "The Westminster Standards" |
| The Present Controversy: Part 3, "The Westminster Standards" | | Date Created: Oct 17, 2005, 03:56 PM |
A discussion in the comments section of my second post on the "current controversy" has focused on the use of the Westminster Standards. The arguments used against the FV/AAPC guys by the Greenville crowd and even sometimes the ACE bunch sure sound like a species of strict subscription to me. To be honest, they often sound like super subscription.
Things that I was taught in seminary about the Westminster Confession are now considered "dangerous." We would regularly have conversations in class about Westminster's archaic language, it's dated theological categories (esp. re: covenant), and the fact that sooner or later new confessions and catechisms will need to be composed. But now, if one utters such things, accusations of heresy and/or a violation of one's ordination vows are likely to be heard.
This essay by Jim Jordan contains the kind of ideas that used to be safe to discuss. I can't do much better than Jim here, so I'll let you read and interact with him. I believe this essay hits the nail on the head and deserves a wide distribution.
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Misusing the Westminster Confession
by James B. Jordan
Of late considerable controversy has arisen over Biblical Theology in conservative Presbyterian circles. Generally speaking, those opposing “new” ideas—which are actually not new, and which are fully Calvinistic—do so by pitting them against the Westminster Confession of Faith and its accompanying Catechisms, together called the Westminster Standards. By doing this, such opponents very often abuse the Standards, assuming things that are false about the Standards and the intention of their writers.
First, the Standards are often a consensus document. The men at the Westminster Assembly did not all agree with each other about everything. There was a variety of views on things like what happens at baptism, for instance, and the imputation to the elect of the “active obedience” of Jesus, for another. Often the Standards reflect an attempt to form a consensus, or to do justice to the concerns of all parties. Hence, it is often quite wrong to use the Standards to argue for only one very particular understanding of, say, baptism or imputation, and to insist that anyone disagreeing with that view is out of step with the Standards.
Second, and along the same lines, the Westminster Confession was designed as the constitution of a national church, not as a list of denominational distinctives. Denominations did not exist, or were only beginning to exist, at this time. The writers wanted to produce a document that all generally Protestant pastors in England could agree with, not a document that forced them all into the same mold. The Standards were not created to be a filter by which to defrock every English minister who could not swear to every jot and tittle they contained.
Third, the writers were not under the illusion that their document could substitute for the decisions of the living Church. The Standards teach “limited atonement” or “particular redemption,” but the writers knew that not all Reformed and Protestant pastors in England had the same under-standing of what this doctrine meant. They did not intend to exclude such men. The Standards would he used as a guideline, and an important and necessary guideline, but would not substitute for the decisions of individual presbyteries of dioceses in the national church. Certainly the Confession was designed to exclude Romanists, Arminians, Amyraldians, and Arians (proto-liberals), but if a presbytery were convinced that a man was a sound pastor, fit for ministry, they would not be bound to insist that he subscribe to every jot and tittle of the Confession, only that he agree to live under it.
Continue reading the rest of the essay here.
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