Since the PCA’s 2007 General Assembly, by approving the report, did something that was egregiously unconstitutional (pass sentence on the doctrinal orthodoxy PCA ministers without due process), contrary to the Westminster Standards (by approving a report that mistated their doctrine), and against the Word of God (by preferring a human council as the final appeal in a religious controversy) it is worth bringing up at least every other day. Just when people think the enemy is dead and buried is, in the Church, precisely when the real conflict begins and the question of “confession or more cover-up” begins to be felt as a physical pressure.

However, it might be worth pointing out that more constructive paths are also possible. So here is a conversation starter:

The reason I am so far unimpressed by claims that the “Federal Vision” denies justification by faith alone is that all the arguments on offer, if applied consistently, would prove that the Westminster Confession and Catechisms deny justification by faith alone.

I can stop there, but I’ll point out a couple of things.

My claim above has premises. A couple of them are:

1. The Westminster Confesson and Catechisms accurately sum up the teaching of the Bible.
2. The Westminster Confession and Catechisms accurately teach the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone.

I hope this will be seen as a “middle way” since Premise #1 allows those who think it is a waste of time to consult their Bibles since we’ve already done all the necessary exegetical work in the last few centuries of the Church to engage the question.

For evidence, I appeal to the committee report and point out some confessional statements that are obviously at the heart of the whole issue that were entirely ignored. Consider, for example, some brief expositions I have written on the Westminster Standards:

• Necessity of New Obedience
• The Westminster Standards and Sacramental Efficacy
• Justification by Union According to Calvin and Westminster

These deal with statements, I submit, that the Committee on the Federal Vision either entirely ignored, or nodded to but made no effort to study, though they are obviously at the heart of the reason why this debate exists.

That last statement, in my opinion, is obviously true. One need only read the statements from the Westminster documents to know immediately why there is an “FV controversy.” However, I’ll offer some evidence anyway. Consider the SBC and then consider the Lutheran Church MO Synod. Has any “movement” in the SBC ever taught an efficacious Baptism? Has any movement in the LCMS ever caused controversy on teaching that good works are necessary to salvtion?

No.

Yet both these groups are tremendously larger than the PCA. Statistically, if this is all random human perversity then these “heresies” should pop up there as well, in even larger numbers than in our much smaller denomination.

But it isn’t random human perversity; it is the Westminster Confession and Catechisms. The difference is that both the SBC and the LCMS have different doctrinal standards.