OK it is bad manners to quote an entire post, so I won’t. But every bit of it is quotable!
A parable:
Imagine, if you will, a king who had many subjects in his castle, all who were doing their best to serve him faithfully. The king was gracious and gave them regular banquets, and the servants did their duty faithfully in return. Imagine, then, that the king brought a bunch of new servants in to serve alongside these – servants that were entirely unexpected, particularly because many of them were so young and seemingly inexperienced at royal servitude. When the older servants expressed shock at the presence of the younger, the king turned and said to them, “Actually, my friends, it is these who are the greatest example of the kind of people I want to serve me! They are not only equal members of the kingdom – they are the ultimate example of members of the kingdom!”
Imagine, then, as the king returned to his duties, leaving the oversight of the castle in the hands of his older servants, that these servants decided the newcomers needed to pass a few tests first. The simple ceremony of the king’s acceptance was not enough; these newcomers would need to prove they deserved to come to the banquet as well. Would the king be terribly pleased that his older servants were so vigilant in making sure the kingdom was filled only with those deemed to be “true” members by experienced servants?
What anti-paedocom exegesis sounds like to ex-baptist ears:
Look: when Presbyterians make this argument against paedocommunion, Baptist have every reason in the world to roll their eyes and throw their hands up in the air. This is the exact same argument used over and over again by Baptists. Every NT example of baptism is accompanied by belief and repentance, therefore infants can’t be baptized…you get the picture. When I made the move to paedobaptism and then ran into Presbys making this argument against paedocommunion, I thought I was in the twilight zone.
On believing the Bible:
Or maybe we can approach this from a few different angles. In the first place, I grew weary of credobaptist theology precisely because the credobaptist has to spend so darn much time explaining that certain passages about baptism don’t mean what it sounds like they mean. When Peter says, “baptism saves,” he doesn’t mean “baptism saves.” When he says, “repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins,” he actually meant, “repent for the forgiveness of sins, and then be baptized.” When Paul says that baptism puts us “in Christ,” that we are “buried and raised with him in baptism,” and that baptism places us into the body of Christ, he doesn’t actually mean that baptism really does those things. It’s all just a symbol (Baptist).
Or just a “sign and seal” (Presbyterian). I’m really having a hard time seeing the difference, except that Presbys do it to babies, too. When it comes to the way Baptists and some Presbys talk about baptism, quite frankly, the Baptist position is far more internally consistent.
The only inaccuracy I can see is that Travis thinks that the “PCA has come out strongly against paedocommunion.” No. It has been granted as an exception for decades in many presbyteries and is represented in the denominational seminary. The shrill voices you hear are striving to not sound like a minority (I don’t mean that the majority are in favor of paedocommunion; I mean peace-of-the-church-shattering hostility to paedocommunion is a recent minority movement. I know lots of credocommunionist pastors in the PCA who believe paedocommunionists are orthodox and Reformed). One can read the official ruling and see how the PCA has reacted officially.
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To get at some of what may be driving some of this, I think what has gotten some riled to the point of raucousness about the paedo-c position is that, back in the day, those who were granted the exception were assumed (by the grantors and by some of the grantees) to not preach or teach their position (I was a member of Miss Valley Presby when one of the FV/AA4 announced his exception regarding paedo-c, and he told the court that he wouldn’t preach or teach his exception, because that was what he and we understood the exception process was all about). That is what was assumed about any and all granted exceptions., BTW. As long as it didn’t strike at the vitals of religion, and was considered to be close enough to the pale of the Standards, then the exception was granted: the man wouldn’t preach or teach contrary to the Standards, and the matter was closed.
I know there have been some who wouldn’t have allowed men with paedo-c convictions to even be allowed within the PCA, that it would be a disallowable exception. But the vast majority of the credo-communionists were OK with allowing most men with paedo-c convictions into or to remain in the PCA as long as the exception wasn’t taught or preached. Thus the peace was maintained.
With the change in practice in the PCA with a man being able to preach and teach his granted exceptions, unless actually restricted by his court of oversight, has undercut the once “sure footing” that was assumed — that the doctrine of the Standards was the doctrine of the PCA. Now it is more like “Standards (+/-), depending where you live, your mileage may vary.”
I personally feel betrayed by the PCA in adopting the new way of handling exceptions. I had grown up in the PCA since ’73 and had been taught that with regards to exceptions, the old way of handling them was the right way. Though unwritten in the PCA’s BCO, it was within our traditions, long-held assumptions, and ecclesiastical culture, at least in the TR wing and amongst the old Southern Presbyterians of the PCA. With the change, though, I believe we have bashed holes in the bottom of our good ship PCA.
This, I think, is what is driving some of the opposition to those holding the paedo-c position. Now that many are allowed to preach and teach their exception the former peace is disrupted, there is no clear sound coming from the pulpits, and their is the clamor of battle.
I wonder if the “teach or preach” exception has gone the way of the dodo in the age of the internet.
I never heard it taught or preached from anybody who was pastoring a PCA or OPC church.
But I read stuff, and read about it, and read books and looked at articles from guys like Jordan, and Chris Keidel, and Gallant, etc. It’s out there. So say someone comes to an exception pastor and asks him about the topic. He can say “yes, I agree with PC, but I don’t teach it or preach it”. But all the books are aout there, and the fact that he can admit he agrees with it (is athat a violation of trust) leads to the growth of the position.
But nobody is betraying anything.
True, for the longest time those who were paedo-c within the PCA didn’t publically preach or teach it. It was understood that wasn’t “cricket.” And what material there was to be had came from “outside” the PCA (Keidel, Jordan, et al.). Yet there was “informal” teaching that went on within the PCA; for example, mentoring of interns by TEs, or in bull sessions of TEs with one another (“hey, what did you think of Keidal’s paper,” or “Rayburn’s stuff in the GA study”).
I guess my expectation of “not preaching or teaching” was just that: no way, no how, no where, except where presbytery allowed (say, in a study paper). It’s all part of my maintaing of the peace of the church. Silly me. 🙂
See I’ve heard a slightly different version of the story about the MVP paedocommunion exception by Mr. AA back in the day.
I was told that he offered to neither preach or teach the exception, but that the presby. (at that time at least) actually said that it would be ok for him to do so.
Your perspective is very interesting, John. I first encountered PC back in 1991 or ’92 by reading the “Position Papers” published by the PCA. I remember at the time asking my pastor about it and he told me that he had taken that exception, even though I had never heard him preach or teach on it. He didn’t really say much more than that other than point me back to both position papers.
I know that by the time I was ordained in 1997 in the Great Lakes Prebytery, the general sentiment communicated to me (from both committee members and floor discussion) was that taking the PC exception would be ok so long as the candidate gave assurances that he would not make it “central” to his teaching and that it would not seek to “push the issue” or make it a point of contention or division.
We’re now nearly twenty years out from the ’88 GA. I’m sure both time and to some extent geography have played a significant role in how things have changed and a reaction to this isn’t all that surprising to me. Thanks.
Steven, are you sure that wasn’t LA pby, and not MVP?
I’m a slow learner. I entered the PCA about 10 years ago and I’m still figuring out how it really works. For instance, I didn’t know that some Presbyteries had de facto sessions via certain committees; same for GA. I thought the BCO was structured such that sycophants and megalomaniacs couldn’t meet ahead of the meeting and decide how things would go, with the moderator driving the floor with a clear agenda.
I was taught by early mentors that some men in the denomination should be disdained and ignored. Having met some of these men now (a couple of whom comment on this site), I’ve found that they are fine ministers I’d want to pastor my family if I weren’t a pastor.
When I read JOB’s comments above, I agree completely that “anything goes” is a horrible turn of events. While I figure I’d prefer certain changes that would allow the paedo-c guys to preach and teach their view, there was a way, albeit a very slow way, to accomplish that. It’s gone now. Now there’s no need for that arduous process of change because “anything goes”…so as long as you’re in the favor of those in power.
I took the paedo-c exception back in 1987 in Evangel Presbytery. They did not forbid me to preach or teach it, only that I be pastorally sensitive if I do. I transferred to S. Texas Presbytery in 1991 and they did NOT ask me to promise that I would not teach or preach it. I transfered to the MO Presbytery in 1994 and they did NOT limit me on preaching and teaching it.
The idea that men promised not to preach or teach it “back in the day” is a myth. Rob Rayburn certainly did not understand that the GA or his presbytery was forbidding him to teach or preach it.
JJM & my other brothers,
I’m not disputing that some presbyteries in the 80s and 90s didn’t restrict some men in their preaching and teaching regarding their some of their received exceptions. I’ve seen such scenarios as you described in your experiences with several presbyteries. That’s, as one has said in a different context, descriptive; it isn’t necessarily normative. Here’s my “descriptive” of what I (and others) once were taught was “normative.”
My “back in the day” in the PCA probably goes back a bit further as far as personal experience as an observer as a communicant and college student and then seminarian since ’73 than many readers of this site. Add to that my conversations with Morton Smith and others of the founding generation concerning these things, especially that of confessional subscription.
My experiences include pre-J&R with the RPC,ES. I can’t speak much to how confessional subscription and handling of exceptions was taught to men from the old RPC,ES. From what I have experienced, though, in being, at one time, one of a couple of TEs from the old Southern wing of the church in a presbytery that was predominately former RPC,ES, I must say that it was a bit different from what I had been taught in the PCA.
My experience is with the PCA of old. I still have a brochures floating around in my files that I got in those days for, first, the “Continuing Presbyterian Church,” and then, “The National Presbyterian Church.” I remember when MNA was MUS — and when the committees of GA were in several different cities out of a distrust of concentration of power.
In the polity discussions at RTS Jackson in the 60s and 70s regarding the issue of exceptions, from my conversations with Dr. Smith, Dr. Pipa, and others, the position I noted in a posting above was taught to a large number of men who later were in the PCA presbyteries in the South.
Now, what men were taught and what men practice are at times two different things. Sometimes there is a reticence to restrict a man’s teaching — there are many reasons as to why or why not a man was restricted or not.
My point in these postings has been that it once was understood in a seminal portion of the founders and first generation of the PCA that sat at their feet that if one had exceptions received by one’s presbytery, one didn’t preach and teach them. There was a sense of honor on the part of all involved that it was so. What I (and a lot of others) was taught was this way, and what we tried to practice — and to my knowledge, this included at least one paedo-c guy I knew. We expected that if a fellow had a received exception, he didn’t preach or teach it. He could dialog with his presbytery. But not inculcate it in his ministry — and that included publications for journals.
But that view has not obtained, and we find ourselves in the situation we’re in today.
I can also understand why a man who holds to paedo-c, or some other strongly held position that is contrary to the Standards, wouldn’t necessarily suggest to his presbytery that he be restricted from being able to preach or teach his view. He would believe that he was in the right, and the Standards were in the wrong on that point. If there was any restricting going on, he isn’t about to suggest it; it was going to have to come from his presbytery.
I think the guidelines proposed by David Coffin in his pre-GA 2000 talk on subscription sum up my position. (THE JUSTIFICATION OF CONFESSIONS AND THE LOGIC OF CONFESSIONAL SUBSCRIPTION, WITH SOME OBSERVATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS CONCERNING THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN AMERICA):
“… 13. Thus the courts of original jurisdiction should consider carefully any professed exceptions to the substance of the Confession’s teaching. Here the candidate supposes that he disagrees with the Confession, credibly believing the Bible to teach other than what the
Standards teach. The court must judge whether the excepted doctrine so undermines the
integrity of the system of doctrine, government, discipline and worship of the Standards as
to 1) make doubtful the candidate’s profession of that system, or, 2) make impossible the
candidate’s practice under that system; in either of which cases, the exception cannot be
permitted. If the exception is found permissible, the candidate shall be approved only on
condition that: a) he shall not be permitted to teach in opposition to the Standards; b) he
must be able and willing to teach the doctrine of the Standards with sympathy and defer-
ence, and bring his practice into conformity with the Standards’ teaching; c) he shall be permitted to express his own conscience on the matter in the course of his teaching on the subject; and d) he shall be permitted peacefully and respectfully to advocate his views before the courts of the church in order to persuade the church to modify its Standards.
14. If an officer finds his study of scripture leading to conclusions contrary to the Confession,
he should first raise his concerns, not in public, nor with people he serves, but with his
brother officers. The matter should be raised for discussion, so that the church may help
resolve the doubts, or become persuaded that a change in her Confession is necessary.
15. By the wholesome procedures of appeal and complaint, used with restraint and modesty, the Church defines and refines the boundaries of the language of her Confession through judgment in particular cases.”
And to quote Forrest –“that’s all I have to say about that.”
I hope this isn’t too inappropriate, but I’d like to mention that both JOB and JJM, though they be on different sides on several of these matters, are similar in that they are both men I was warned to avoid. Nonetheless, both have helped me immensely (JOB through conversation; JJM through print), and I’m thankful I wasn’t swayed by certain “leaders.”
Paedocommunion is really also a unique kind of thing to teach about. If you convince someone of calvinism, you run them through some texts, and make logical arguments.
teh Paedocommunion argument consists of saying
1. Look, you agree we should baptize babies right?
2. Have you noticed that the reasons we do that applies pretty much equally to communion (that is, the logical arguments are already known to the inquirier)
3. Have you noticed that the “examine himself” prooftext is about all the creedos have, and its pretty weak?
4. hey, you want a good proof of infant baptism? “All Israel was baptized into Moses in the Sea”. Includes the kids, right?
5. I’m not allowed to answer your questions about how the rest of that verse applies to anything…
6. Oh, go read John Murray on infant baptism. But i’m not allowed to tell you to study his claim that less is at stake in admitting infants to communion than denying infants baptism.
Paedocommunion teaches itself 🙂