Today, I invite you to read at least three books:
and
Of course, there’s the Constitution, itself, too.
Wednesday, September 17th is Constitution Day. The cause of the death of major banks like Bear Stearns, IndyMac, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers; the fact that habeas corpus has been suspended in the U.S.; the fact that U.S. Presidents have declared all the U.S. wars since WWII – these are just some of the “flat lines” on the Constitution’s ECG.
Let me say from the outset: Politics is not ultimate.
I almost don’t want to write about politics, but my sanity has been questioned by my family whom I love, so I feel the need for vindication. To say that my sanity was questioned is a bit of an understatement. What should have been a civil discussion turned into a verbal fight with two family members to whom I am extremely close. I said things I shouldn’t have said. I’ve since confessed my sins and asked for forgiveness.
But these dear family members are neoconservatives who think that the Republican Party as of the RNC convention (today, September 2, 2008) is the only remnant of the Founding Fathers, politically speaking. Though I am registered as a Republican, various recent events have convinced me to beomce a civil libertarian. M.G. Kline’s books and lectures dealing with Common Grace and Intrusion Ethics, D.G. Hart’s biography of J. Gresham Machen, Misty Irons’ arguments about the Reformed doctrine of original sin and homosexuality, and the common, constitutional sense of Ron Paul all contributed to my political shift.
One caveat before I get to the substance of this post: I do not idolize the Founding Fathers. They were unbelievers of various flavors, in the main. I labor under no delusions that they were devoted Christians who based our government’s polity on the Bible and the Christian religion. In a word: hogwash. I do, however, believe that men like Thomas Jefferson had a great deal of insight into the principles that ought to govern and guide the State. I attribute that to Common Grace; friends like D.G. Hart, John Muether and Ken Myers attribute that to Creation. But that’s another topic for another post.
Am I certifiably insane — worthy of being put to death (as one family member implied) — for believing:
1) Aggressive, interventionist war is insane, immoral and contrary to freedom.
2) The Federal Reserve is unconstitutional and is robbing us of the fruit of our labor: it ought to be abolished.
Well, if that makes me a wacko then I guess I’m in good company because here’s some of what some of our liberty-loving founders had to say on these subjects:
1) On the topic of foreign policy (i.e., how the U.S. government ought to relate to foreign governments, when to go to war, etc.)…
Thomas Jefferson said,
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“Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations–entangling alliances with none, I deem [one of] the essential principles of our government, and consequently [one of] those which ought to shape its administration.” –Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural Address, 1801. ME 3:321
James Madison said,
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war, is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded…” — James Madison: Political Observations, April 20 1795, (Madison, IV, page 491)
and
“Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged against provisions against danger, real or pretended from abroad.” — James Madison: Letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 13, 1798 (Madison, II, page 141)
In other words: whether the threat of “terrorist” (”pirate,” to the founders) danger is real or fabricated, such danger gives the State the perfect opportunity to steal your liberty. Madison also said,
“It is a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute.” — James Madison: Letter to the Dey of Algiers, August, 1816 (Madison, III, page 17)
(”Tribute” is kind of like what the I.R.S. requires of us.)
2) Should the President of the United States be able to make the decision to go to war?
Thomas Jefferson said,
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“We have already given… one effectual check to the dog of war, by transferring the power of letting him loose from the Executive to the Legislative body, from those who are to spend to those who are to pay.” –Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:461, Papers 15:397
The “dog of war” comment would earn the fierce condemnation of those like Rush Limbaugh (who, ironically, instilled in me the political principles which I still hold so dear and, which principles are the reason why I can no longer listen to him and vote for most Establishmentarians Demoplicans Republicrats). Rush would carry on about how this statement sounds like a hippie and/or a Democrat (not to mention the previous statements: Rush and Heir McCain would call them “isolationist”) — as if that’s an effective, not to mention definitive argument against an idea. But that “@#!$%&! piece of paper”, as Heir Bush so cleverly referred to the Constitution of the United States (which he swore an oath to protect and uphold), defines the LEGAL path to war as that which CONGRESS leads us down. Yes, that makes all of the wars since World War II illegal.
These neoconservatives would also claim that September 11, 2001 changed everything. Now, they claim, we must police the world, wage preventative war and give up as many of our personal liberties as possible in order to be “safe.” In other words, the terrorists won, ironically, because we must stop being and doing all of the things that defined American greatness in order to pretend to defeat a tactic or stragtegy (is that even possible?) called terrorism. But another wise unbeliever named Benjamin Franklin with profound insight into civil government rebutted this when he said,
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” (Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin, Kessinger Publishing, 2007)
3) Is the idea of a central bank possible for those who love liberty and are committed to free markets?
Jefferson said,
“I sincerely believe… that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” –Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:23
Note well that not only are standing armies “dangerous,” but that banks that can print/counterfeit/inflate (”the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding”) — those banks are MORE dangerous than standing armies!
On the subject of money, Thomas Jefferson also said,
“Paper is poverty,… it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.” –Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1788. ME 7:36
and
“I now deny [the Federal Government's] power of making paper money or anything else a legal tender.” –Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1798. ME 10:65
In other words: only gold and silver are legal tender (at least according to that “@#!$%&! piece of paper”). When something else can be willy-nilly “declared” to be money by governmental fiat, the State can spend you and me into debt.Crazy? You decide.
I am conflicted. On the one hand, I sincerely want to be a High-Church Calvinist because I believe the Bible teaches that the Church is the institution God has ordained to be our spiritual “mother” (as Augustine put it). I believe the Bible when it talks about the power God has attached to the preaching of Christ; I believe the Bible when it links baptism to what Christ has done for me, and therefore to my salvation; I believe the Bible when it says that if I do not eat the body and if I do not drink the blood of Christ, I do not have eternal life. I believe that the Church holds the keys of the kingdom, and that the Lord Jesus Christ has entrusted her with maintaining the discipline of the body.
On the other hand, I can’t truly be a High-Church Calvinist, because the Reformed and Presbyterian Churches have become tyrannical and have run me out. That’s a long story, but suffice it to say that my family and I are the fruit of the imperfection of the Church.
So where is someone who desires to be a High-Church Calvinist to go in a rural town where the local “Reformed” theonomic church has already participated in the tyrannical rail-running, where the only guy who remotely came close to preaching Christ was canned in favor of RickWarrenism and where almost every choice is either mainline liberalism or low-church protestant enthusiasts? Well, I guess that someone and his family would have to go to the little Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) church.
Enter Issues, Etc. When my family and I first started attending the local Lutheran church, I wanted to try to acclimate as much as a Calvinist could. So I found Issues, Etc. online by searching for any MP3s of Rod Rosenbladt besides the White Horse Inn. I appreciated Todd Wilken’s commitment to justification, the contrast between Law and Gospel and his criteria for evaluating sermons. Although, those same things became frustrating and bitter as I sat in Sunday morning worship missing ALL of those things except for the Confession and Absolution section of the liturgy.
Todd probably doesn’t remember me, probably doesn’t care, and that’s okay. If he helps confused Christians understand justification and the fact that every sermon should be the proclamation of Christ, then I’ll root for the guy. I do have to air a bewildering frustration of mine about Todd, though. As I listened to archives of Issues, Etc., I heard him occasionally address the topic of Reformed covenant theology. He was less than generous. In fact, his practice seemed to be to interview LUTHERAN pastors about what Reformed covenant theologians believed. Together they concluded that if the Reformed believe that there was ANY covenant of works at ANY point in history, then that must allow them to say that we are all under a covenant of works NOW. That strikes me as being as wise as having two Reformed guys who have only been to Reformed schools interview each other about some point of Lutheran theology. Why not interview someone who actually holds the position? (Todd made it crystal clear that he didn’t understand covenant theology AT ALL). So I tried to dialog with him. I emailed him on more than one occasion. Now, I will be the first one to admit that I am not the brightest bulb on the tree. But having studied under the most brilliant covenant theologian of all time, and having written a book on the subject, I thought that–even if Todd ended up disagreeing with the Reformed on covenant theology–we could at least dialog about it in the interests of intellectual honesty and edification. No such luck. On the air, Todd would read any other email I sent him. But he roundly and soundly ignored every email having to do with covenant theology.
Sorry. I had to vent. This post is actually about Issues, Etc., ecclesiastical authority and my own tortured soul. Since Todd seemed to have become irritated with me, I gave up listening to Issues, Etc. (I just listen to Christocentric sermons online… since I’m not hearing any on Sundays). Then, today, I ran across the Riddleblog. There, Kim said this about the death of Issues, Etc.
The program will be totally independent, and free (blessedly so) from control of the LCMS “ABlaze” types.
So my questions — as one who desires to be a High Church Calvinist, but who providentially can’t be — are: If the Church tells you–even if it does so by means of a particular party to which you are staunchly opposed–that you may not say or teach something, then whence comes the authority to continue saying and teaching those things? Even if you are convinced on the basis of God’s Word that the party that is in control of the Church is absolutely wrong, isn’t it still the Church? How do you sort through the two conflicting imperatives to submit to those in authority over you and to proclaim the gospel? Or is the answer to leave that church? And if the answer is to leave, how much longer will it be until there is no such thing as catholicity any more because each local congregation is convinced that all other local congregations are unworthy to be united with?
I don’t want Todd and Jeff to tone down the Gospel at all. But as someone who thought he understood how things worked, I am confused about how to prioritize submission and obedience. After all, whenever you DON’T choose to submit to ecclesiastical authority when it is one of two conflicting authorities, you’d better believe that those church officers will let you know how evil and wicked you are for disobeying and rebelling. Perhaps that is how Luther and Calvin each felt…
Without rehearsing everything that R. Scott Clark and Lee Irons have said, it seems to me that the problem with the Reformed and Presbyterian forms of subscription (focusing solely on church officers and seminary professors) can be distilled to this:
System subscription is manifestly necessary when a confession says more than it must. But the other edge of that same sword is that the system then depends upon the faith, education, good will, catholicity and commitment to all of those things on the part of the presbyters. Without them, I don’t see how to avoid ecclesiastical events like the Auburn Affirmation and its aftermath.
Now Clark may object by saying that the Reformed are exempt from this critique because they don’t practice system subscription. But that is true only formally. Lee Irons and Matt Morgan are absolutely right to press home the torturous truth that materially (or, to use Clark’s term actually) the Reformed do practice system subscription. Clark admits as much when he says:
Are there things in the Reformed confessions which are not of the essence of the documents themselves? Sure. We haven’t commonly called 1-2 Chronicles “Parlipomenon” for a very long time. I doubt that the Apostle Paul wrote Hebrews, but we haven’t required anyone to hold those views in order to be regarded as subscribing the Three Forms of Unity for a very long time. Indeed, Pauline authorship of Hebrews wasn’t universally accepted in the 16th century and it was probably a mistake (as I think Calvin suggested) to include that language in the Belgic. At least, unlike the Lutherans, we don’t confess anything about the power of garlic!
What else is not of the essence of the confessions? Well, I hesitate to make a list because I don’t know that there are many things in either the Three Forms or the Westminster Standards that Reformed people ought not to be expected to believe. I don’ t know that our churches were have been in the habit of confessing things that esoteric.
There are a few things to respond to here, but the main point is that the Reformed admit that there are things in the Confessions that are not of the essence of Reformed faith and practice. This is a de facto admission to the practice of system subscription.
The other thing to keep in mind as Clark objects to making a list of things non-essential in the confessions, is that words mean things. That is why, while the Westminster standards may be a more “mature” expression of the Reformed faith than the 3 Forms, they may also be the most damaging to Christian consciences—precisely because they say more than is necessary. For example, as Lee has already pointed out, Meredith Kline objected to the language of “some voluntary condescension on God’s part” in describing God’s covenant with Adam. Does Clark really mean that the theological development of Reformed minds was arrested in the seventeenth century at the conclusion of the Westminster Assembly? Or is it possible that Meredith Kline can develop Reformed covenant theology further and more carefully (with an ever-watchful eye on safeguarding the Pauline-Protestant doctrine of justification) in such a way that it calls into question the necessity, orthodoxy and biblical authority of the “voluntary condescension” language?
I believe such progress is possible. But before I offer my own suggestions regarding that progress, let’s look at one more thing.
Clark claims, “The system of doctrine contained in the Reformed confessions is not minimal or to be minimized. It is co-extensive with the documents themselves and that which is of their substance.” This would be a helpful solution if it were true materially or actually. But Clark has already admitted a few things that are not co-extensive with the documents themselves. Let’s look at a few more:
Belgic Confession Article 7 reads (in part):
Therefore, no other Writings of humans, however much gifted with sanctity, nor custom, nor any majority, nor antiquities, neither rules of the times nor succession of persons, nor any councils, nor finally any human decrees or statutes ought to be pitted against or held on par with these divine Scriptures and this naked truth of God, because the truth of God surpasses all things.
Now I grant that there is some circularity involved insofar as it is impossible to read the Bible as if we hadn’t learned what it says and means from a tradition. But the nature of systematic theology is such that as we develop one area, it requires the adjustment of other related areas to reflect that development. Clark’s point about the difference between various systematic theologies and the received confession of the Church is well-taken. But it doesn’t require the divorce of the two. It seems to me that such a divorce will inevitably lead to intellectual dishonesty, academic censorship, violated consciences or all three. I fail to see how a Reformed understanding of Sola Scriptura (i.e., Oberman’s “Tradition 1”) makes the confessions immutable. Doing so could very easily lead to Oberman’s “Tradition 2” or “Tradition 3” which I think Longman was concerned about.
The challenge has already been issued about BC Article 4:
Again, there are canonical books of the New Testament: the Four Gospels, obviously blessed Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the Acts of the Apostles, the Fourteen Letters of Blessed Paul, and the Seven Letters of the Remaining Apostles, the Apocalypse of the Blessed Apostle John.
(I just realized as I worked on this, that there is some incredible irony here: The RCUS, of all communions, has changed the language of Article 4 to attribute 13 letters to Paul, leaving Hebrews standing alone!) Here, Clark’s own critical questions come home to roost. If subscribers of the BC do not have to mean what Article 4 says about the authorship of Hebrews, “it is necessarily subjective… what if a WTS prof defines “system of doctrine” differently? What if, by “system of doctrine” a WTS prof has a much [different list]? What if justification sola gratia, sola fide weren’t on the list or what if the Reformed doctrine of worship or what if the doctrine of the covenant of works (which the Westminster Confession mentions several times but which many contemporary “Reformed” folk have felt at liberty to reject) are not included?” What’s good for the proverbial goose…
But we haven’t exhausted the things that the 3 Forms say that not every intellectually honest Reformed theologian is eager to say. Take BC 36, “Of the Magistracy”:
Again, it is the duty of these, not only to anxiously preserve civil polity, but also to give true effort that the holy ministry would be preserved, and that all idolatry and adultery of the worship of God would be removed from the public square, that the Kingdom of Antichrist would be destroyed, that the Kingdom of Christ would be truly extended. Finally, it is of their duty to bring it about that the sacred word of the Gospel would be preached from everywhere so that everyone, in turn, can freely worship purely and venerate God according to the prescription of His word. Moreover, all people, of whatsoever status, or state, or respect they may be, ought to be subject to the lawful Magistrates, to pay tax and tribute to them, and to follow and obey them in all things that are not opposed to the word of God, and also to pour out prayers on their behalf so that God would deem it worthy to lead them in all of their actions, and so that we could truly lead, with all piety and honesty, a tranquil and quiet life under their very selves.
Does R. Scott Clark really mean to tell us that we are duty-bound to confess that God’s Word teaches that the civil magistrate is responsible to make provision for the Christian ministry? Does he really believe that it is Congress’ mandate from God to remove all idolatry and adultery of the worship of God from the public square? Does Congress have a hand in destroying the Kingdom of Antichrist or truly extending the Kingdom of Christ? Does he really believe that not only Congress, but all civil magistrates of all times and all places are charged by God with protecting the preaching of the Gospel and free, pure worship? If so, what happened to the theology of the cross? I thought we were aliens in this present evil age who are to identify with Christ’s suffering. In other words, I thought Christ taught us to expect to suffer at the hands of those like the State. One more thing that I have been wrestling with lately—if we are “to follow and obey them in all things that are not opposed to the word of God” then what advice does a Consistory give when a parishioner’s conscience is unclear about paying taxes that support violations of the Decalogue—for one specific example, in the case of conscription, what should a Consistory tell the parishioner who believes that the 6th commandment is inviolable whether he wears a government uniform or not? This is more problematic than the other two, because this accounts for the majority of Aricle 36 of the BC.
But there is one more example that I would like to introduce. This one comes from Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 37:
37. What do you understand by the word “suffered?”
That all the time He lived on earth, but especially at the end of His life, He bore, in body and soul, the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race;1 in order that by His suffering, as the only atoning sacrifice,2 He might redeem our body and soul from everlasting damnation,3 and obtain for us the grace of God, righteousness, and eternal life.4
1 Isa 53; 1 Tim 2:6; 1 Pt 2:2-4, 24, 3:18; 2 Ps 22:14-16; Mt 26:38; Rom 3:25-26, 5:6; 1 Cor 5:7; Eph 5:2; Heb 10:14; 1 Jn 2:2, 4:10; 3 Rm 8:1-4; Gal 3:13; Col 1:13; Heb 9:12; 1Pt 1:18-19; 4 Jn 3:16; Rom 3:24-26; 2Cor 5:21; Heb 9:11
On its face, this is in direct conflict with the Article 8 of the Second Main Head of Doctrine of the Canons of Dort. Now I know there are gymnastics one can do that go something like, “When I confess ‘x’ I really mean ‘y.’ But that is not the kind of subscription Clark is advocating. He wants officers to “embrace all that we confess with heart and mouth.” Does “all” mean all or some, or most?
So what is the solution? This is where I laud Clark for feeling the force of Lee’s argument:
I do think, however, that the tension that exists, of which this discussion is a symbol, between what we confess formally and what we confess actually, is a symbol of the need for a new confession to which we can all subscribe honestly and thoroughly.
I could not agree more, and I have been giving this project a little thought (though I’ll save that for another post). Suffice it to say, the new confession should achieve the co-extensiveness of system and document. That means the Reformed and Presbyterian churches must debate, not simply announce, what is and is not of the essence of the Reformed system. That way we will have a document that Reformed Christians will be eager to own as their confession.
