Jim Jordan on the fractured ideologies of unending Presbyterian war

Excellent commentary. Here’s a hefty portion:

When the Auburn Avenue Conference dealing with covenant theology, called “The Federal Vision” merely as a title, was held in January, 2002, the first people to attack it were Joe Morecraft and his tiny hyper-theonomic denomination. This is hardly a surprise. These people have a very flat view of covenant history, and object to the notion that the New Covenant is the resurrection form of the Old. They also see themselves as “Southern” Presbyterians, which means they dislike Charles Hodge and the kind of open catholicity he represented. Hodge wanted American Presbyterians to make use of the liturgical riches of the Continental Reformed and of the Book of Common Prayer. Morecraft and his “Southerners” are “bapterians” who want no liturgical forms at all. So, they reacted with anger at the covenantal-historical notions presented at the 2002 pastor’s conference.

Next came the Clarkians at Knox Theological Seminary. They, and they alone, actually spoke to the “FV” people that they disagreed with. This, I’m horrified to recount, is unique. None of the other committees and people who have investigated this “FV” stuff have ever bothered to email or phone anyone they are evaluating. At least the Clarkians did talk to us.

But the Clarkians don’t like the FV. Well, is that a surprise? The followers of Gordon Clark say that faith is notitia and assensus, but not fiducia. They have been objecting to historical Calvinism ever since the 1930s. They object to the so-called FV for the same reason: We say that faith involves loyalty, fiducia. Nothing new about that; it’s the standard Calvinistic position; but in the minds of Clarkians standard Calvinism is teaching salvation by faith plus works (fiducia). Hence, it’s hardly surprising that the Clarkians don’t like the FV. They don’t like Cornelius Van Til. They don’t like historic Calvinistic understandings of faith.

Then came the PCA Mississippi Valley Presbytery and its report. Well, they don’t like the FV. That’s no surprise. They don’t like Continental Reformed theology at all. They like Thornwell and the other Southerners, who said that baptized children are just little heathen until they have a “baptistic” faith experience and come to Jesus. They don’t like Hodge. They don’t like Calvin, save as filtered through a “bapterian” mysticism. They are happy with a mix of scholasticism and mysticism, and don’t like the kind of covenant-historical thinking of the Liberated movement and of Cornelius Van Til.

These people have repeatedly said that Presbyterians who like the Federal Vision ideas should leave the Presbyterian church and join a Continental Reformed body. We believe that it is they, with their American revivalistic individualistic mindset, who have departed from the Reformation and from the perspective not only of the Continental tradition, but also of the Westminster tradition. We claim that Westminster is not that much different from the 3FU, and that we stand with both. That’s not acceptable to Southern Presbyterians, who have been described as “baptists who sprinkle babies.”

The OPC chimed in next. No surprise. The OPC is full of Klineans who hate any type of cultural transformation. The whole Reformed “world and life view” tradition is rejected by the Klineans. They want a “spiritual” church that might as well be an invisible church, holed up in this wicked world and waiting for Jesus to come back. Not exactly the robust Calvinism of our postmillennial and “optimistic amillennial” forebears. So, the OPC report (from a stacked committee) rejects the FV. No surprise there.

Finally we come to Mid-America Reformed Seminary, and here I must confess that I was genuinely shocked and saddened. I expected the Southerners, the Clarkians, and the Klineans to dislike what we have been saying. That’s nothing new. They’ve objected to historic Calvinism for two generations at least. And it’s no surprise that the heirs of Kohlbruegge in the RCUS also dislike Norman Shepherd and the FV — after all, if you are suspicious of the whole Reformed doctrine of sanctification, you are not going to welcome people who say that faithful Christians are obedient Christians.

Reading the MARS report, however, I realized that what the MARS faculty dislikes is precisely the Schilderian/Holwerdian thinking that is found in the FV. I don’t know anything much about the politics in the URCNA, but it sure looks to me as an outsider that the MARS report is not really aimed at the FV at all, but at the Canadian Reformed. The things the MARS report criticizes about the FV are mostly Liberated ideas, which we FVers embrace.

To be sure, those of us being grouped into the FV are not on the same page with the Liberated at every point, but we certainly do have a lot of things in common: preferring not to speak of the church as visible and invisible, rejecting the notion of a meritorious covenant of works, treating baptized children as Christians, etc. We who have been put together in this FV Myth have all benefited greatly from the Liberated movement. I have on my shelf a complete file of Almond Branch magazine, which I received from 1971-79. (How many of you readers are old enough to know what that was?) Some “FV” churches use the Canadian Reformed Book of Praise as a hymnal.

Anyway, I guess your magazine will be a place where “FV” notions and scholastic/mystical notions will fight it out. I thought, though, that your readers might want to see how things look from one “major player” in this nonsense.

The worst aspect of this whole debacle is the fact that neither the OPC committee, nor the PCA committee, nor the MARS faculty ever made any contact with the “FV” people they criticize. Had they made even one phone call, they could have found out that we don’t believe most of what they accuse us of believing. I find this behavior appalling.

One thought on “Jim Jordan on the fractured ideologies of unending Presbyterian war

  1. pentamom

    I confess I’m uncomfortable with the almost ad hominem approach to labeling here. I don’t actually dispute that there’s a lot of truth in his categories, but I have my doubts about whether this is really a good way to approach the situation, all things considered. While the argument doesn’t strictly take an ad hominem form, it sure exudes a flavor of “these guys just say this because they’re just a bunch of (fill in the blank.)” Such analysis can be accurate and yet still not promoting of purity and peace.

    Reply

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