I. BACKGROUND & EXPLANATION

       The idea of a Book of Confessions is not new. The PCUSA adopted a Book of Confessions back in the late 1960s, together with their awful Confession of 1967. In other words, the idea has an ignoble history. Their Book of Confessions is also online at <http://www.pcusa.org/oga/constitution.htm>.
       However, our former mission plant, All Saints Presbyterian Church ( Lancaster , PA ), has adopted a Book of Confessions. I’ve been sitting pro tempore on their session of that church along with Marlin Detweiler and Gregg Strawbridge. Our discussions have been fruitful, and we’re very pleased with the result.
       The session of Trinity Reformed Church is really hip to a Book of Confessions and it’s our consensus that we want to move in this direction. But it would be far better for Trinity to do this together with Christ Church rather than for Trinity to proceed alone. (We may want to consider, for reason of preserving unity between TRC and Christ Church , that the two churches retain the same Constitution and Statement of Faith. This is a separate discussion.)

A. Advantages of a Book of Confessions

        1. A Book of Confessions is more ecumenical than adopting one single confession. With it we could confess our unity with the pre-reformation church, unlike many confessions used today. Unlike the reformation confessions, it favors neither the Puritans (as the Westminster Confession does) nor the continental reformers (as the three forms do).

        2. A Book of Confessions is liturgically, pastorally, and governmentally better than adopting one single confession.

a. The Westminster Confession is a lousy document for liturgical use. On the other hand, the Westminster standards are superb for the governmental purpose of clarifying the truth over against heresy. The Westminster Shorter Catechism is good for systematic instruction.

b. The ancient creeds are glorious for liturgical use, but many heretics will say they affirm them. They do not consider the doctrinal advances and refinements of the Reformation.

c. For pastoral use the Heidelberg Catechism is without equal.

B. Disadvantages of a Book of Confessions

1. A Book of Confessions is less systematic than a single confession and, by consequence, includes many overlaps and redundancies. This introduces confusions into the already problem-ridden arena of confessional subscription. Witness the postmodernists in the PCUSA: by adhering to a Book of Confessions, they see the church as a changing community; the church is not really confessing any substance. They say, “The Nicene fathers confessed their faith in a way they saw fit for their time, just as the Westminster divines did for their time, etc. Today we stand together with them, holding fast to our great heritage, and confess our own faith, in our own way, for our own day.” Such reasoning enables a PCUSA minister to simultaneously deny the Virgin Birth and affirm the Nicene and Apostle’s Creeds. It enables a female PCUSA pastor to affirm the Scots Confession which plainly prohibits women in ministry. (This sinister hermeneutic is set forth in the Confession of 1967, the adoption of which was one reason why the PCA pulled out of the southern church back in 1972.)

2. A in implication of point 1 above is that a Book of Confessions could be unwieldy in a heresy trial. One purpose of a Confession is to supply terms of doctrinal accountability to church officers (I Timothy 6). For this purpose it would be cleaner to have one single, more concise confession.

3. Some may argue that a Book of Confessions is, in and of itself, inconsistent with the idea of creedal advance. The truths of older confessions should be subsumed under the more recent confessions. The usual conclusion of this line of thought is to adopt the Westminster standards, the most recent of the great reformed formularies.

C. Compensating for the Disadvantages

We need to develop a well-thought out preface to our Book of Confessions. The preamble should include: (a) A hermeneutical principle by which the various confessions are understood and interpreted. We must preclude a postmodern approach to reading redundancies and contradictions among the documents. (b) A statement declaring that, in those places where the confessions may differ, we will defer to one confession for doctrinal accountability purposes. This precludes the unwieldy task of harmonizing the confessions we would otherwise have to undertake. (c) We need to list exceptions, but given b above, we need only formulate exceptions to Westminster . (d) The preamble should also include a statement of introduction about what we are thinking when we adopt these confessions. The Scots Confession, chapter XX, is an outstanding historic statement on this. At my suggestion a few years back, Trinity Church in Wenatchee adopted this paragraph from the Scots confession. It’s excellent.

D. Conclusions

I believe the advantages outweigh the drawbacks, mainly because the drawbacks I listed could be mitigated by a well-written preamble.

 

II. THE PROPOSAL ITSELF

 A. Preamble

 Our various creeds and confessions express an important part of who we are as a church. We confess and believe together with our fathers in the faith and our brothers throughout the world. We are baptized into their company as members of the same body, the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with them we eat of a common loaf and drink from a common cup. Their creed is our creed, even as their life is our life—one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. The elders of Christ Church therefore subscribe to these creeds and confessions, holding them to be a faithful witness to what the Scriptures teach, and as a means of identifying with the broader Church.

We hold to the ancient creeds as defining the faith once delivered to the saints, and we hold that no one rejecting the truths proclaimed in these creeds can be right with God.

We hold to the distinctive truths of our reformational confessions, knowing that many faithful Christians have differed with portions of these confessions. We confess our view that these confessions faithfully represent of Scripture, but we do this, not as a means of dividing with Christians who differ, but rather to make a faithful and charitable testimony of what we believe Scripture to teach. These confessions represent the understanding of our church officers, and are not binding on the members of our church.

In this spirit, we therefore commend the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion as an faithful and historic testimony of the martyr church, but we reject any use of that confession as a museum piece, where the form of religion is kept but not the power of it.

We therefore approve the Three Forms of Unity for use in liturgy and catechesis, and heartily commend their pastoral approach. We reject any unfaithful spirit that would take this more organic and pastoral approach to confession as an excuse to make room for an unbelieving spirit that rejects any pointed accountability.

We therefore approve the Westminster Confession and Shorter Catechism for use in doctrinal accountability for officers of the church. To preserve clear accountability for our officers, our confessions should be construed to harmonize wherever possible, but in areas where they cannot be harmonized we defer to language of the Westminster Confession of Faith. For this reason, we declare our exceptions to that confession only. We reject any approach to Westminster that degrades into litigiousness, fractiousness, sectarianism, or gnat-strangling.

 B. Confessions

1.  Ancient Formularies

a.    Apostle’s Creed

b.    Nicene Creed

c.    Definition of Chalcedon

d.    Athanasian Creed

2.  Reformation Standard from England : Thirty-Nine Article of Religion

3.  Reformation Standards from the Continent

a.    Belgic Confession

b.    Heidelberg Catechism

c.    Canons of Dort

4.  17th-century Puritan/Scottish Standards

a.    Westminster Confession of Faith, 1647 version (without Scripture proofs)

b.    Westminster Shorter Catechism (without Scripture proofs)

 

C. Exceptions to the Westminster Confession of Faith

1.     Chapter 7: Of God’s Covenant with Man— Para . 2: (cf. Chp. 19, para. 1, 6). We would clarify that the “covenant of works” was not meritorious and we deny that any covenant can be kept without faith. Good works, even in this covenant were a result of faith, as illustrated by the Sabbath rest which was Adam’s first full day in the presence of God.

2.    Chapter 21: Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day— Para . 8: We believe that along with works of piety, necessity, and mercy, the command also calls us to rest our bodies on the Sabbath (Gen. 2:2-3; Ex. 16:30 ; 31:15-17). We do not believe the intention of Scripture was to exclude recreation, especially in the context of the fellowship of God’s people.

3.    Chapter 24: Of Marriage— Para 4: Delete the last sentence, which reads, “The man may not marry any of his wife’s kindred, nearer in blood than he may of his own: nor the woman of her husband’s kindred, nearer in blood than of her own.”

4.    Chapter 25: Of the Church— Para . 6: Though we believe the Pope of Rome to be anti-Christian, we do not believe him necessarily to be the Anti-Christ, Man of Lawlessness, or Beast of Revelation, etc.

5.    Chapter 27: Of the Sacraments— Para . 4: Ministers of the Word should ordinarily lead in the administration of the Sacraments, yet we believe that it is permissible for the sacraments to be administered with the oversight of any elder, lawfully ordained.

6.    Chapter 28: Of Baptism— Para . 3: We believe that the proper modes of baptism include sprinkling, pouring, and immersion. Para . 4: Being a church composed of both paedobaptists and those holding to believer’s baptism, we expressly allow men otherwise qualified to serve as elders, but who hold to believer’s baptism, to make an exception to WCF XXVIII. 4, which states, “Not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ, but also the infants of one, or both, believing parents, are to be baptized.”

7.    Chapter 29: Of The Lord’s Supper— Para . 7: We would clarify that “worthy receivers” of the Lord’s Supper should include all baptized covenant members who are able to physically eat and drink the elements, including very young children being raised in the discipline and admonition of the Lord (provided that they are not under discipline). We deny that an artificial standard of age or mental capacity is consistent with the Biblical basis for partaking of the Supper. We defer to the heads of households in discerning the capacity of their young children to partake in the Supper.

   

III. ITEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY

A. A brief history and explanation of Confessions of Faith by A. A. Hodge is at this site: http://www.bible-researcher.com/confessions.html

B. Ancient Formularies

  1. Apostle’s Creed: http://www.mbrem.com/confessions/apostles.htm
  2. Nicene Creed: http://www.mbrem.com/confessions/nicene.htm
  3. Definition of Chalcedon : http://www.reformed.org/documents/chalcedon.html
  4. Athanasian Creed: http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/creeds/athanasn.htm

C. Text of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1571-39articles.html

D. The Continental or Dutch Standards

  1. FYI: Brief history of the Dutch tradition in America is at this site:
    http://reformed.net/church/timeline.shtml
  2. FYI: History of the Heidelberg Catechism: http://www.reformed.org/documents/heidelberg_intro.html
  3. Text of the Belgic Confession: http://www.holybible.com/resources/BelgicConfession.htm
  4. Text of the Heidelberg Catechism: http://www.reformed.org/documents/heidelberg.html
  5. Text of the Canons of Dordt: http://www.reformed.org/documents/canons_of_dordt.html

E. Westminster Standards

a.       Background

a.       Hetherington’s History of the Westminster Assembly http://www.reformed.org/books/hetherington/west_assembly/index.html

b.      FYI: Westminster Larger Catechism http://www.reformed.org/documents/wlc_w_proofs/WLC_frames.html

c.       FYI: Other materials from the Westminster Assembly http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_sub_standards/index.html

b.      Confession of Faith (1647)

a.       Confession without scripture proofs: http://www.reformed.org/documents/westminster_conf_of_faith.html

b.      Confession with scripture proofs: http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/

c.       Shorter Catechism

a.        Shorter Catechism without Scripture Proofs
http://www.ccel.org/creeds/westminster-shorter-cat.html

b.       Shorter Catechism with Scripture Proofs http://www.reformed.org/documents/wsc/index.html