What Else We Confess
Monday, June 15, 2009 at 11:41AM So the Belhar Confession passed the General Synod and is on its way to the Classes. It will have a harder time getting approved in 31 Classes than getting a majority at Synod, but I think it probably will make it. If that is the case, though I have my reservations with the Belhar, I will be thankful for the themes of unity, justice, and reconciliation and pray that they are understood and applied correctly.
I also hope that our confession of the Belhar will precipitate a more robust confession of our current Standards. If I’m talking to someone in the RCA who loves the Belhar, but is also passionately committed to the truths of the Belgic, Heidelberg, and Canons, and loves these truths and preaches them joyfully and earnestly, I feel much better than when I’m talking to someone who begrudging accepts out three Standards or barely knows what they say or deep down doesn’t believe much of what they affirm. I’m all for talking about unity, justice, and reconciliation, so long as we still talk about faith, repentance, providence, heaven, hell, the wrath of God, a penal substitutionary atonement, and the cross of Christ. If the RCA confesses Belhar, I hope we will also reaffirm what we may have forgotten from the Belgic, Heidelberg, and Canons.
I hope every RCA church will accept the Scriptures as holy and divine (BC 3), and “believe without a doubt all things contained in them” (BC 5)–every miracle, every demonic possession, every “I am” statement, every prophecy of Isaiah no matter how remarkable they may seem. I hope we will affirm that the teaching of the Scriptures is “perfect and complete in all respects” and no human writing, custom, council, decree, or majority opinion stands equal to the divine writings (BC 7). I hope we will have the guts to say we believe the Scriptures to be without error, and “reject with all our hearts everything that does not agree with this infallible rule” (BC 7).
I hope we will not lose our passion for the message of the gospel, even as we try to better live out the implications of the gospel. I hope the message of Christ’s wrath-sustaining, curse-bearing death for sinners will resound from every RCA pulpit (BC 20, 21). I hope we will trumpet the good news of Jesus Christ and his righteousness imputed to us through faith (BC 22). I hope we will help the hurting and care for the needy and also tell them that “our blessedness lies in the forgiveness of our sins because of Jesus Christ” and that “God grants this righteousness apart from works” (BC 23).
I hope that as we talk about the unity of the church, we will equally affirm that the church is to be “a holy congregation” (BC 27) and for the church to be the church it must engage in the pure preaching of the gospel, the pure administration of the sacraments, and practice church discipline (BC 29). I hope we will continue to believe that “our children ought to be baptized and sealed with the sign of the covenant” (BC 34), and that we will practice what we profess to believe in this matter and in every other area of possible doctrinal slippage.
I hope that every ordained minister and professor of theology, and anyone who has taken a vow to uphold the Standards, will not only rejoice in the "gracious reward the Lord" will give the faithful and elect, a glory such as the heart of men could never imagine, but will also confess that the wicked and unbelieving “shall be made immortal–but only to be tormented in the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels”(BC 37).
I hope every RCA preacher will teach the absolute necessity of being born again (HC 8). I hope that the glorious logic of propitiation and penal substitution laid out in HC 12-19 will be understood, affirmed, gladly proclaimed, and sung at full voice in our churches and at General Synod. I hope we will find comfort in the truth that God does not merely allow hard things to come into our lives, but that all things–good and bad–come to us from his good, fatherly hand (HC 27).
I hope we will declare, winsomely and boldly, to a dying world that only through faith in Christ and subsequent union with him can anyone be saved (HC 20). I hope all the pastors in the RCA will teach their congregations to believe in the virgin birth (HC 35), justification by faith along (HC 60, 61), and the reality of eternal life and eternal condemnation (HC 84). I hope we will affirm that not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but we will confess that “Those who, though called Christians, profess unchristian teachings or live unchristian lives, and after repeated and loving counsel refuse to abandon their errors and wickedness, and after being reported to the church, that is, to its officers, fail to respond also to their admonition–such persons the officers exclude from the Christian fellowship by withholding the sacraments from them, and God himself excludes from the kingdom of Christ” (HC 85). I hope every elder board, Classis, and regional synod really believes this and will practice what we confess to believe. I hope we will remember that Christ has commanded us to call God “our Father” and not “our Mother” (HC 120).
I hope we will not be embarrassed by the Canon’s teaching on election and reprobation, but we will see, as Paul did, the glory of God revealed in his sovereign, free choice. I hope we will not be ashamed of limited atonement and total depravity. I hope we will encourage our people with the good news of the preservation of the saints and preach the gospel to all nations, believing that God’s irresistible grace will be effectual in the elect. This is but a small sampling of the doctrinal, devotional, scriptural riches in our Standards. I hope from the bottom of my heart that everyone who has vowed their assent to the Standards embraces these truths and gladly declares them to others.
Our confessional heritage is as good any out there. Perhaps the practical outworkings of Belhar will make a great thing even better. I don’t know what will happen. Only time will tell. But I do know this: Belhar isn’t worth confessing if we don’t really confess the Standards we already have.
Reader Comments (7)
I hope your hopes become a reality.
I "second" that hope. I'm just not sure how to get our confessional heritage on the front burner of life and worship in our RCA churches. How about a reformation?
I'll echo the comments so far. As a minister who uses and teaches all three of our standards and all three of our creeds both in classes and worship... and as one who has taught through the Belhar several times over the past years during our study and provisional adoption of it, I hope and pray the RCA will recapture its rich heritage too.
Equally, I hope and pray we recapture our equally-as-constitutional liturgy in the process. I believe time has shown that doing "willy nilly" in both worship and pulpits has been deeply problematic.
Of course, this may well require some people to re-examine the vows they took upon ordination and start taking them a bit more seriously, but... well... let's be honest, that certainly wouldn't hurt anything, now would it!? :-)
Whatever else we may disagree on, here - at least - I think we find some common ground.
Grace and Peace,
`tim
Thanks, Kevin, for good thougths on this. I am not as certain that the Belhar will be approved. My experience suggests that synod margins are not gaurantees of what each classis will do. Some of our elders, for example, are vary favorable in the Belhar as a study tool (we did a Sunday School class with it, we used portions of it in worship with Amistad Christiana, etc.), but I think our elders are comfortable with it being useful tool and not a fourth confession. I think that might be the case for a number of people.
In any event, if it does pass the classis process, I join in your hope.
Blessings,
Jon Opgenorth
Kevin -- thanks for your post.
I wonder whether there is room for not only teaching what our confessions teach, but also allowing for what other visions teach, so long as they do not conflict with or are taught as a preferential way of reading the Scriptures.
Take substitutionary atonement, for example. This is indeed one way of interpreting what happened on the cross, and it is solidly embedded in our standards of unity. No questions about it, and I teach it faithfully.
At the same time, I do find that Christus Victor also resounds with the deep longings of many hearts wtihin my congregation. In addition, the Abelardian matrix has a rather strong pull. I don't think the Abelardian understanding is nearly as strong, mind you, nor do I preach or teach it as our way of reading the Scriptures. But at the same time I don't tell people that they ought not think in those terms. (Christus Victor is much stronger, in my opinion) Also, in recent years, a couple of other understandings have gotten traction -- none, I would say, from the contextual theologies, but from more "academic," Biblical theologians like Raymond Schwager.
So I'm just wondering about whether, standing firmly on our confessions, we also can make room for discussions of complementary ways of construing the mighty acts of God? Just a question for possible discussion----
Peace be with you.
Kevin, great job defending the truth. I am afraid people will misuse the Belhar to promote the homosexual agenda. I think this document will eventually be used to discriminate against the church by automatically setting policies on accepting homosexuality as normal. I believe this could be the intentions of some in Synod.
" I believe this could be the intentions of some in Synod." Quite right "affiliate"
I wonder if a single person exists in the RCA who is supports biblical interpretation that the homosexual lifestyle is consistent with Scripture, but on the other hand is not a proponent of the Belhar confession. I was very discouraged by the lack of progress by the committee which was formed 3 years ago. Of course a consensus wasn't reached......seems like a waste of time and money with the denomination looks to the people for a consensus rather than scripture.