Considering the Truths We Confess

I’ve been working on a Sunday School curriculum on the Westminster Standards. Among the resources I’m using are commentaries of the Westminster Confession by A.A. Hodge and Robert Shaw. The main resource was Truths We Confess: A Layman’s Guide to the Westminster Confession of Faith by R.C. Sproul.

It is a layman’s guide. It is less technical than Hodge and Shaw. Paradoxically it is much longer than those commentaries. Sproul’s guide is 3 volumes. At times it was repetitive, particularly when he would launch into the elements of faith: content, assent and trust. On one hand I understand since faith plays a big role in the Confession showing up in many of the chapters. It begs to be understood. On the other hand, there is a chapter entitled “On Saving Faith” which addresses this topic. I’m not sure why he didn’t hold off on the discussion of faith until then. It doesn’t bother me, but when I consider those who would greatly benefit from studying the Confession, this may make it more difficult. Many laypeople are busy and don’t have time to read. And some really don’t like to read. A three volume set, while enticing to me, can look daunting to many.

As someone who has read most of his books, this is typical R.C. Sproul. He is gifted in making difficult subjects understandable for average people. It can be easy, in this case, to be overwhelmed with the Confession’s archaic language. But he breaks it down well. There are plenty of illustrations to help people understand.

It is not just for laypeople. I benefited from reading the book as well. There were somethings I hadn’t thought through before.

As a guide to the Westminster Confession, this set is essentially a systematic theology as it moves from the doctrine of Scripture and God to salvation and eventually to the Christian life (including the state, family and the church). It shows the progression of thought in all of this and shows the interconnectedness of these doctrines. This reflects the intention of the Westminster Divines.

While Sproul handles the Confession, the Catechisms are in appendices. This is a good thing in that they have a slightly different emphasis. The Short Catechism begins with the famous notion that “the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” This is how I theologically orient the study. All of this is intended to help us glorify and enjoy God. The Larger Catechism has more of an emphasis on union with Christ. While Sproul does mention this topic, it could use more development (just like it could use development in the Confession).

So, caveats accepted this is a worthwhile set to add to a pastor’s library, a church library and officer training. It will also be of great interest to Christians old and young with an interest in theology.

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Considering Jesus, Justice and Gender Roles

At this year’s General Assembly they decided to have a study committee on women in the church. This was met with mixed reviews. Some were glad. I was glad, but I will not impute the reason for my joy to others. I want to better understand the Scriptures, in particular one text of Scripture, and for our church life to be more fully conformed to those Scriptures. In other words, I believe that notion of Reformed and reforming.

Some were upset seeing this as a move toward liberalism. They believe they fully understand the Scriptures and haven’t imported any erroneous cultural notions into our understanding of the Scriptures.

I don’t see this as the on ramp to women elders. This is especially true when I look at the people on the study committee. We’re talking Ligon Duncan and Susan Hunt for Pete’s sake.

Our Session decided we wanted to study this subject for ourselves so we can better evaluate any majority and minority reports. In fact, our men’s ministry has decided to look at this too. So I’ve done some shopping to add to the books I own and have read on this subject. One of the books I added was Jesus, Justice, & Gender Roles by Kathy Keller. Kathy is also on this study committee and this was a book I wanted to read anyway.

In addition to being the wife of Tim Keller, Kathy has an MA in Theological Studies from Gordon-Conwell and spent some time as an editor for Great Commission Publications.

To call this a book is generous. It is more like a booklet, being 39 pages (plus a few pages of end notes). This increases the likelihood of it being read by my very busy elders. It also means that it won’t cover everything I might want it to cover or as in depth as I might want it covered.

Let’s lay the card on the table first. She is a complementarian. This is a broad term, and there are a few differences of opinion within this movement. Many want to claim their version as the only version. This, in fact, is one of the reasons for this book. She tries to nail down the essential point of complementarianism.

She divides the book into two chapters. The first focuses on hermeneutical issues and two key texts. The second focuses on how this plays out as she feels pressure from both egalitarians and more “conservative” complementarians (or those who may actually hold to a view of patriarchy).

She begins by describing how she arrived at these conclusions (and to hold to the inspiration, infallibility and authority of the Scriptures) though she didn’t grow up believing them and they threatened her career ambitions. Hermeneutically she affirms  the analogy of Scripture (clear texts interpret unclear texts) and that each text has a context (historical, cultural, social, and I might add theological) that affects its meaning. The two texts she focuses on are 1 Corinthians 14:33b-38 and 1 Timothy 2:11-12. In some ways she views the first as less clear and the second as more clear such that 1 Timothy helps us understand 1 Corinthians.

We cannot isolate 1 Corinthians 14 from the rest of 1 Corinthians. This means that we cannot use it to mean that women must be absolutely silent in a worship service. For instance, 1 Corinthians 11:5 mentions women praying and prophesying in the public worship service. While we might claim the prayer is silent, clearly the prophesying is not. As a result she notes “Paul in 1 Corinthians is not condemning the public ministry of women, but regulating it.” In other words, public exercise of spiritual gifts is to retain “divinely ordained gender roles.”

She does mention Miriam, Deborah and Huldah as women leaders. She, unfortunately, just mentions this in passing. Since these women are used by egalitarians like Sarah Sumner to justify their views, I think this bore more attention. Miriam, for instance, while publicly leading, was publicly leading women in the chorus of the song.

In its context, she understands (quite reasonably) this text to be about the elders evaluating and judging the content of prophecy in the worship service. They were discussing it and speaking authoritatively upon it. Women were not to be interjecting and disrupting this process which involved only the elders. This happened prior to the completion of the canon and the elders were to guard the deposit of truth they had (and were still receiving). We do this less formally now that the canon is complete by holding pastors to confessional standards. If I begin to preach deviant views, the elders are charged with admonishing me, and presbytery will be involved if I persist.

This view is supported by what we find in 1 Timothy 2. Debate has raged over whether “teach or have authority” (NIV), “teach or exercise authority” (ESV),  refers to two separate functions or one function (teaching in a position of authority). She, following James Hurley (who used to teach at RTS Jackson), Craig Blomberg and Philip Payne believes this is a hendiadys in which the conjunction connects the two verbs so they are mutually defining.

“So what is being forbidden to women in 1 Timothy 2 (and by extension in 1 Corinthians 14) is authoritative teaching- some kind of teaching that carried with it an authority not found in other, allowable forms of oral discourse.”

In her understanding there are times when a teacher doesn’t have authority. You can disagree with a SS teacher or small group leader but it isn’t a problem. The problem is if we disagree with the elders on an important issue (it may be prompted by the disagreement with the SS teacher). The SS teacher can’t excommunicate you, but the Session can!

The main tenant of complementarianism is male headship in the church (and home). In the church it is male elders (there is disagreement on the question of deacons which means we have disagreements on the nature of a deacon or “ordination” behind the scenes).

Keller then briefly mentions the common reasons why people think we don’t have to obey these instructions by Paul: misogyny by Paul, only binding on the church then, and outdated commands. She notes how unconventional Paul was in his relationships with women and how the charge of misogyny really doesn’t have any legs. The second charge is based on a fallacy since every part of Scripture is written to a specific group at a specific time for a specific reason. We do distinguish between descriptive and prescriptive passages however. Scripture describes polygamous marriages, for instance, but never prescribes or affirms them. This second excuse also denies Paul’s instruction about Scripture in 2 Timothy 3. The third excuse essentially is that we have more light now. Another version of this would be the trajectory hermeneutic of some progressives like Rob Bell where we try to project what Paul might think & say today.

“Consider the enormous hubris in appointing our present cultural moment as the yardstick against which God’s Word must be measured.”

We should not give into the impulse to fall back onto “love” since the issue is so “complicated and confusing.” She reminds us that the great creeds and confessions of the church were the products of (often) vigorous debate. It is better to dig deeper into the Scriptures and submit ourselves to what they say. This is not simply a personal project but a community project (regarding both time and space).

“I have found it fruitless, leading only to self-pity and anger in my own life, to question God’s disposition of things when I do not understand. Confidence in his goodness has been a better choice.”

The second section is really about trying to address those who disagree with her, both the women who are egalitarian and the men who are more patriarchical (my term) or those who have a more restrictive view of women in the church. She distinguishes between gifts and roles. We tend to conflate them. A woman can have a shepherding gift and she can exercise it, but not in the role of pastor. She brings up her now deceased professor Elizabeth Elliot in discussing this. We should want women to fully exercise their gifts even as we recognize that there is a role (or two?) they cannot fulfill. She puts forward a common formulation that a woman can do anything an unordained man do.

This is a SHORT book, as I mentioned. As a result there are a number of things I thought went unaddressed. I would have preferred some discussion about deacons. That was beyond her scope and is really not an egalitarian vs. complementarian question.

She does affirm the voluntary submission of the Son as Mediator in the economic Trinity. In the footnote in that paragraph she clearly denies Eternal Submission of the Son, which is proposed by some complementarians or at least seems to be. She rightly calls this, in my opinion, a heresy. Some people, like Wayne Grudem, keep doubling down on their ESS views (which are also found in the ESV Study Bible). Frame’s comments are quite tentative on this issue.

Anyway, this was a helpful booklet to read even though its scope was limited. Reading this I see no reason for my more “conservative” brothers (I am a conservative, by the way) to fear the PCA sliding into liberalism with Kathy’s inclusion on the study committee.

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Considering Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates

The other day I was about to check the newest Jeffery Deaver novel out of the library for the long weekend when I noticed Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates on the shelf. I hesitated. The subject interested me. It was written by Fox News Channel’s Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger. I know some of the Bill O’Reilly books could use some more research. I bounced it back and forth in my mind for a few minutes and finally decided to go for it.

I’m glad I did. It was a fairly quick read as I finished it on Monday morning after starting Friday afternoon. It was an interesting read as well.

In some ways the story begins before the 1790’s as the Barbary coast pirates had been active for centuries making a living off of other nation’s trade. Some nations, like Britain had paid tribute to the Barbary nations of north Africa. This made no sense to me since they (Britain, France & Spain) had the more powerful navies in the world. Invest a little time and they could solve the problem once and for all.

While they were foreign ministers, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams debated this problem. Adams recommended a treaty based on tribute. Jefferson, uncharacteristically, recommended a military solution.

After the Revolutionary War was completed America was deeply in debt. They had sold off their warships to pay off some of that that debt. To become economically strong they needed to trade with other nations. That became difficult without a navy to protect their merchant ships.

The Barbary nations would steal ships, and their cargo and enslave their crews. These Muslim nations justified it on the basis of their faith. It was okay to take from and enslave the infidels (this is how they justified the beginnings of the African slave trade as well). A slave would be freed if they converted to Islam, but if you reverted to your other faith you would be killed.

So sailors and passengers would be held for ransom. Men who were not officers were subject to hard labor, and sometimes torture. It was such a big problem that when Jefferson was the ambassador to France for the young nation, he didn’t want his middle daughter to sail across the ocean after his youngest passed away.

Toward the end of Adams’ presidency, Congress approved the formation of a new navy. It was this slowly increasing navy that Jefferson used during his presidency to address the problem of the Barbary nations. This is the main focus on this book.

It is filled with early mistakes by captains, uncertainty of policy, utter incompetence and finally men committed to defending their nation, and its merchants.

In this history we see a few policies that would mark U.S. policy into the present. The first was not wanting to occupy other nations. The goal was not to colonize those nations, but simply end the conflict they initiated and restore the peace they would break in innumerable ways.

The second would be the beginning of the policy to not negotiate with terrorists, or terror states. The Barbary states, especially Tripoli exacerbated the situation by constantly changing the terms of the agreement and making outlandish demands on a new nation. They tried to take advantage of the fledgling nation.

We have generally kept this policy. It was violated recently when another Muslim state, Iran, captured one of our naval ships. Apparently our current President didn’t learn much from history, and shipped $40 million dollars to them for the soldiers’ release.

Thirdly, the plan that was being executed when Tobias Lear negotiated a treaty was regime change. The rightful ruler of Tripoli had been removed by his younger brother who was now living in exile in Egypt. His wife and children were hostages back home. The plan was to raise a large enough army to support his bid to take his rightful rule. The plan was working when Lear, who didn’t like the plan since it minimized his influence, jumped in to make a premature deal.

While Lear’s treaty brought peace in the short term, it didn’t solve the problem in the long term. During the War of 1812 the British encouraged them to resume plundering U.S. ships. After the war, our bigger navy was sent to set things aright in the Mediterranean. After this, future President John Quincy Adams wrote to Stephen Decatur “I most ardently pray that the example, which you have given, of rescuing our country from disgrace of a tributary treaty, may become the irrevocable law for all future times.”

This mission by Decatur, who served valiantly in the previous conflict with the Barbary nations, brought to an end “the centuries-old practice of building economies around kidnappings, theft, and terror”.

This is an interesting period in American history, one which is not considered very often. We see some similarities to some current problems and there may be lessons to be learned from the actions of our founding fathers in this affair. This is the point Kilmeade ends with, though not in a heavy handed way. He sees the parallels but does not belabor them. I found this to be an engaging book.

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