The problem is that the former set, controlling the levers of public evangelical opinion as they do, seem utterly oblivious to the fact that there are many of us who not only think differently but also somewhat resent the suggestion that we ought to adopt their manner of thinking. It seems to be felt – and sometimes explicitly stated – that one ought to care about every matter under the sun, which is brought to the world’s attention, irrespective of how far removed it is from the circumstances of one’s daily life. Many of us disagree and would say that the world and the church would be happier if people put more effort into their own lives and stopped worrying so much about those of others.

Judging by the New Testament, the primitive church did not wholly escape being influenced by the cultural assumptions by which it was surrounded. At the first, Christ’s disciples’ notions accorded with those of the Jewish culture of their day. Peter had the audacity to rebuke Christ for suggesting he would suffer and die (Matt. 16:22), objected to him washing his feet (Jn. 13:8), and clumsily attempted to defend him by force when the Jews arrested him (18:10). James and John were rebuked when they proposed blasting an inhospitable village of Samaritans (Lk. 9:51-55), and Philip, by his ignorance, brought forth the sobering “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip?” (Jn. 14:8-9). Which is to say that they adhered to the Jewish notions of a triumphant Messiah who was served by Israel’s enemies, in whose service force was used to overcome and punish them, and that even personal acquaintance with Christ did not cause them to fully appreciate his divine nature and mission.
The notion of a suffering and dying Messiah with a spiritual/redemptive kingdom rather than an earthly deliverer who would inaugurate a new golden era of Jewish history was not easily overcome: as late as Christ’s ascension some of the disciples asked “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:7). Taught by the Spirit after he was poured out at Pentecost, they went forth with better understanding, establishing Christ’s church and instructing his disciples in his way. But old habits die hard, and apostleship did not mean sinlessness or infallibility. On occasion the apostles stumbled into mistaken notions (Gal. 2:11-14); yet more did the newer believers. Christ had told the apostles they would be his witnesses “to the end of the earth” (1:8), but when that was begun through Peter’s mission to the Roman centurion Cornelius (Acts 10) the early church acted as though they had forgotten it (v. 45; 11:2-3). Even when the Gentiles had been included many of the Jewish believers thought this necessitated them acting like Jews. Thus the first crisis in the church was the Judaizer controversy, which necessitated the council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:1-35) and subsequent apostolic instruction and opposition to the error.
The Gentile believers, for their part, also struggled to fully escape the notions of their old life. Paul had to tell them that meat sacrificed to idols was not tainted thereby, for some of them, weak in conscience, still acted like idols were real and that meat offered to them would entangle them in wrong (1 Cor. 8). It was with difficulty he made them to understand the resurrection, which was foreign to Greek thought (Acts 17:18, 32; 1 Cor. 15:12). At sundry points they had to be reminded to show respect for Jewish custom, not for its own sake but to avoid giving needless offense (Acts 15:19-21). It took diligence on both sides to ensure that the “wall of hostility” (Eph. 2:14) that had previously existed between Jew and Gentile remained demolished, and for both to maintain the right relation to their wider culture. And as the epistles suggest, this was not done perfectly. All manner of erroneous concepts crept into the church from both Jewish and Gentile sources and required opposition: myths (1 Tim. 1:4), gnostic and docetistic ideas, and other philosophical concepts (Col. 2:8).
This difficult situation arose because of the nature of the new life in Christ, and because of the church’s relation to culture. Life in Christ did not mean being made completely perfect at the moment of conversion. Sanctification was an organic process by which the truth, implanted in one’s heart by the Spirit (Jas. 1:21; 1 Pet. 1:23), grew gradually and required intentional nourishment (Jn. 15:4-6; Eph. 4:15-16; Col. 1:10; 2:6, 19; 2 Pet. 1:5-10; 3:18). This lifelong process was tempered by the believer’s remaining sin (Rom. 7:21), so that the Christian life was one of perpetual war between the new nature in Christ and one’s old sinful tendencies (vv. 22-24). It was struggle, not perfection (v. 25), and at times believers failed to understand or to act rightly.
In addition, Christ had come to save his people, not from the world as such, but specifically from the world insofar as it was a system of ungodliness that arrayed itself against God’s kingdom. The creation remained good, if marred by sin, and because of God’s common grace there was much truth, beauty, and goodness in the lives of unbelievers. Christ did not call his people to withdraw from the world (Jn. 17:15; comp. 1 Cor. 5:9-10), but to live holy lives as witnesses within it (1 Pet. 2:9). They were to use discernment to reject evil and accept good (Rom. 12:2). But human nature remained the same after conversion as before: believers were influenced by their circumstances and the company they kept (1 Cor. 15:33), and because of sin they sometimes erred in judgment or failed to realize when they had come under the influence of ungodly ideas (Gal. 5:7-8).
And so it is in our own day. This especially shows itself in the contemporary church in the question of politics. One’s political disposition is largely the result of cultural and economic conditions: “circumstances are the creators of most men’s opinions,” as the eminent English jurist A.V. Dicey put it in his The Relation of the Law to Public Opinion. This is not sufficiently appreciated, with many people acting as though political inclinations are solely a matter of conscious choice or perceived self-interest.
But being largely a matter of conditioned habit rather than conscious decision means that one’s political inclinations tend to influence one even when one does not realize it. And that is a problem, because believers’ circumstances tend to differ widely: rural versus urban residence, manual versus white collar labor, and differing levels of affluence and education all appear here. Sometimes strife has arisen in the church because people who inhabit one set of circumstances have attained to influence and have spoken upon cultural matters from their own position, and in so doing have offended other believers and failed to realize that what they put forward as responsible Christian cultural engagement is really, at root, the basic cultural/political inclination of their immediate society clothing itself in Christian garb.
The evangelical influential set today largely inhabits certain circles that are different from those of many of the believers whom their institutions are intended to serve. They tend to dwell in urban and suburban locations (esp. Nashville, Wheaton, New York City, or southern California); to work in media (like magazines or major publishing houses) or the academy (esp. seminaries); to be involved in large churches with congregations so voluminous as to cut them off from the bulk of their people, or in major denominational agencies (same issue); and to relate to the church (perhaps better, parachurch) in a way different from many believers (hosting podcasts, writing journal articles, participating in conferences).
We have, in other words, an evangelical intelligentsia, literati, smart set, culturati, establishment, elite, or whatever we wish to call it, and the geographic, vocational, and ecclesiastical circumstances of its members lead them to have a different perspective upon many affairs than that of the bulk of believers today. I do not say that such people are invariably wrong, only that they exist, and that their differing circumstances and beliefs distinguish them from the mass of evangelicals today. People in such circumstances tend to be more cosmopolitan, and to be concerned not only with the immediate affairs of their own community or church but with those of the wider world or church.
This is perhaps not surprising. The Gospel Coalition and major publishing houses are not trying to reach a single denomination or city, but all the people who have access to their productions. Their efforts are not exclusively local in orientation, and this tendency to always think in light of influencing the wider world seems to influence their cultural and political preferences.  Indeed, the point of journalism, to use the examples of World or Christianity Today, is to take something that happens in one place and make it the knowledge of people in other places who would not know about it otherwise. Or again, the point of book publishing is to take the ideas of one person and broadcast them to the world so that they do not remain confined to his immediate circle but can influence people beyond the reach of his personal acquaintance. So also with conferences, which exist to gather people from all over to congregate around a common set of beliefs, or with seminaries, which inculcate a certain set of ideas in people of diverse backgrounds and then send them out to carry those beliefs to the ends of the earth. In each case the point of the endeavor is, in a sense, anti-local, the desire to propagate a given set of knowledge to as wide an audience as possible, whether by journalistic reporting, publishing books or other media, or training suitable propagators of the knowledge.
Such endeavors are often beneficial. But they do seem to inculcate in their participants a habit – that of thinking always in large terms of whole audiences, nations, and, dare we say it, markets – that influences their politics and culture otherwise, and which tends to set them at odds with other believers who do not spend all their time laboring and living in such circumstances. The many believers who perform manual labor, reside in small towns or the country, are in the more remote and less prestigious parts of the nation (‘flyover country,’ the South or Midwest), and who inhabit the lower echelons of wealth and educational attainment tend to think more locally, and to focus on their immediate circumstances rather than those of other people in other places.
Indeed, I can attest, as someone who inhabits such circles, that I do not care what happens on the other side of the county where I live or in its seat, except on those occasions, regrettably numerous, when they wish to interfere in the happiness of my own immediate community by some nonsense like a new tax, debt spending, or some grandiose and unneeded infrastructure project. In saying that I speak politically from my own circumstances, naturally, but I do think that they set me and the legions who feel similarly at odds with those evangelical elites (the term is used without derision) who are perpetually finding causes célèbre to expend their energies upon. Causes, most of which entail worrying about things far removed from their places of residence, disregarding the principle of comity of nations, or otherwise involve neglecting one’s own affairs to busy oneself with discussion about those of others. They inhabit a culture that thinks and acts in such a way; many of us in the pews do not.
The problem is that the former set, controlling the levers of public evangelical opinion as they do, seem utterly oblivious to the fact that there are many of us who not only think differently but also somewhat resent the suggestion that we ought to adopt their manner of thinking. It seems to be felt – and sometimes explicitly stated – that one ought to care about every matter under the sun, which is brought to the world’s attention, irrespective of how far removed it is from the circumstances of one’s daily life. Many of us disagree and would say that the world and the church would be happier if people put more effort into their own lives and stopped worrying so much about those of others. I speak from my cultural circumstances (rural Southern laborer) when I say that, but it has scriptural warrant (Prov. 26:17; Lk. 12:13-14; 1 Thess. 4:11), and we could wish that others would recognize they too speak from their circumstances and would be rather less prone to assume their culture of ‘care about everything, everywhere, all the time’ is the proper Christian one and admits of no dissent.
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks (Simpsonville), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation. 
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Which councils are we to accept, and which are we to reject? Evangelicals have a coherent, practical answer: we are to “test everything” in light of Scripture and “hold fast what is good” and abhor “what is evil,” including all falsehood (1 Thess. 5:21; Rom. 12:9; Eph. 4:25). Those who wish to embrace the Great Tradition are going to be sorely tried at this point, for there will be a tension between tradition and Scripture which will be resolvable only by choosing between the two.

Writing in light of his recent delivery of the inaugural lecture for the Center for Classical Theology (CCT), Carl Trueman has issued an appeal for modern Protestants, especially evangelicals, to “go back to basics” by recovering “classical theology,” which he defines as “orthodox Christian doctrines as set forth by the creeds, the Great Tradition of theology exemplified by the ancient ecumenical councils, and traditional Protestant confessions such as the Westminster Confession.” That definition will not suffice. One, the Great Tradition, so named, does not merely include creeds, confessions, and councils. It also includes the teaching of ancient and medieval teachers, hence the CCT’s popular outlet, Credo, has published issues titled “What Can Protestants Learn From Thomas Aquinas?” and “The Great Tradition: Patristic Edition.” This Great Tradition also includes Platonism, hence Credo also says “the Great Tradition believed Platonism’s metaphysical commitments could serve Christianity,” and explicitly links both to early church teachers (the next sentence says “consider Augustine, for example, whose conversion to Christianity may have been an impossibility apart from Platonism”).
Again, this is not my conception, but that of the Great Tradition’s proponents themselves, and as such the abbreviated definition Trueman gives fails to apprise the reader of what all is entailed in “classical theology” and the Great Tradition. (Brief aside: those quotation marks around classical theology are not snide, but are original to Trueman, for whom I have a warm respect.) And as I have written elsewhere, there are grounds for concern about some of the teachers of this Great Tradition. For example, Aquinas was an idolater, and Scripture’s instructions on that point are plain (“I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is . . .  an idolater,” 1 Cor. 5:11).
The second problem with Trueman’s definition here is that bit about councils. Which councils are we to accept, and which are we to reject? Evangelicals have a coherent, practical answer: we are to “test everything” in light of Scripture and “hold fast what is good” and abhor “what is evil,” including all falsehood (1 Thess. 5:21; Rom. 12:9; Eph. 4:25). Those who wish to embrace the Great Tradition are going to be sorely tried at this point, for there will be a tension between tradition and Scripture which will be resolvable only by choosing between the two. For example, the seventh ecumenical council, Nicea II, anathematized people who reject worshiping images (i.e., idolatry), and so Scripture (Ex. 20:4-5; Lev. 26:1; Deut. 5:8-9; 27:15; Acts 17:29) leads us to reject it as erroneous and unauthoritative. Such cases prompt us to assert that all of us ought to be able to sincerely say, with Luther, that we are we bound to the Word of God alone, since councils “have often erred and contradicted each other.”
In addition, Trueman’s conception is a strange one. He speaks of going back to basics when it seems that in many cases this idiom does not suffice at all. There are many evangelicals who have a notion of initial conversion but who do not have much doctrine beyond that: their whole effort in ministry is bringing people to faith and repentance, but they do not have a robust body of doctrine to teach the disciples they make by their evangelistic activities. In such cases it is not going back to the basics but rather moving beyond them that is needed; such people are in the milk stage and need to move along to solids (1 Cor. 3:2; Heb. 5:11-14). Given his passing mention of contemporary evangelical doctrine owing much to revivalism and his keen historical and doctrinal acumen, I suspect Trueman would agree on this point.
Others do indeed need to go back to basics, but not in the way that Trueman suggests. There are those who are ensnared in pedantry who need to return to the basics of the faith as including practice and not being merely a matter of knowledge in the head (Eph. 2:10; 1 Tim. 6:18-19; Tit. 2:14; 3:8; Jas. 2; 2 Pet. 1:5-10; 1 Jn. 3:17). In addition, we might forgive any evangelical who felt a certain perturbance at Trueman’s suggestion here. Well might one rejoin:
Go back to the basics? What is the Reformation if not a large and enduring plea for people to go back to the basics of the faith as revealed in Scripture and practiced and believed by the primitive church? For over half a millennium now we have been calling people to lay aside the corruptions of human tradition, needlessly convoluted, impossible to perform, and antithetical to the truth as they are, and to return to basic doctrine and practice. We have been calling people to the basics of authority (Scripture alone instead of what a corrupt and fabulously wealthy institutional church says Scripture and tradition teach); of how to be saved (grace alone through faith alone, not submission to priestcraft and participation in manmade practices that contradict Scripture and leave one with no assured hope); of the only means of maintaining a right relation to God (through the merit and intercession of Christ alone, not via the intercession or merits of the earthly church, dead saints in glory, angels, or Mary); of the purpose of human life (to give glory only to the jealous God who will share his glory with no other, not to build an ostentatious earthly institution that revels in its own power); of the dignity of all lawful earthly vocations, the priesthood of all believers, church polity conducted along scriptural lines, of a right understanding of the means of grace and how to act in the world (all against Rome’s dizzying hierarchy and multitude of offices, its elevation of a ‘religious’ life above common earthly labors, its distorted notions of the number and nature of the sacraments, and its commendation of asceticism and monastic lifestyles). Our whole aim and modus operandi is to call people out of burdensome, false, soul-crushing human accretions and back to the basics of the faith God has given us in his word.
This last point touches something which is concerning in Trueman’s article. In his commendation of classical theology he asks:
Why do Protestants, especially those of an evangelical stripe, typically prioritize the doctrine of salvation over the doctrine of God? If an evangelical rejects simplicity or impassibility or eternal generation, he is typically free to do so. But why should those properly committed to the creeds and confessions consider that person closer spiritually to them than those who affirm classical theism but share a different understanding of justification? 
The answer to the first question is that if you botch salvation a pristine doctrine of theology proper will not avail you – for “even the demons believe” (Jas. 2:19). To know God in truth we must first believe and enter into eternal life (Jn. 17:3; 1 Jn. 5:20); a theoretical knowledge about him does not require this. As for the second, Trueman subsequently elaborates:
At an Association of Theological Schools accreditation meeting I once found myself placed among the “evangelical” attendees. In that group was someone who denied simplicity, impassibility, and the fact that God knows the future—all doctrines that I affirm. Those are not minor differences. Wistfully my eyes wandered to the Dominicans at another table, all of whom would at least have agreed with me on who God is, even if not on how he saves his church. We would at least have shared some common ground upon which to set forth our significant differences. The Reformed Orthodox of the Westminster Assembly would have considered deviance on the doctrine of God to be anathema and, if forced to choose, would certainly have preferred the company of a Thomist to that of someone who denied simplicity, eternal generation, or God’s foreknowledge. Why do we not think the same? The modern Protestant imagination is oddly different from that of our ancestors. 
One might opine that such an episode says more about the classification tendencies of accreditation agencies than of the relative propriety of associating with either Dominicans or so-called ‘evangelicals’ that deny essential divine attributes. And one might further opine that such a tendency to be sloppy in their classifications – and for that matter, to accredit such divergent bodies as Westminster Theological Seminary (Trueman’s former institution), Dominican institutions, and schools that employ open theists – calls into question the usefulness and desirability of having the approval of such an agency, but I digress. Much of the difficulty here arises from the term ‘evangelical’ being used too loosely, and even being applied to people whom we consider heretics and whose teaching we avoid, such as the man in Trueman’s example who denies God’s foreknowledge.
I am not sure, however, that it would be just or prudent to regard as heretical people who do not understand or reject something like impassibility. That would be tantamount to condemning pretty much all professing believers to perdition over a doctrine which is neither easily understood nor obvious from a simple reading of Scripture. Growth in understanding being a process, it seems we should gently and patiently commend sound doctrine on this point and not be so frustrated by current affairs regarding it that we wistfully yearn for others to associate us with Dominicans.
That last point is particularly concerning. The Dominicans are a Romanist order, with all the associated false doctrine and practices. For a Protestant to wistfully want to be associated with them is to forget just how badly Rome distorts the truth and subjects people to tyranny, and of how “bad company ruins good morals (1 Cor. 15:33). For him to do so in the midst of an article calling for a return to “traditional Protestant confessions such as the Westminster” is especially curious, since that confession says participation in oathbound orders like the Dominicans is “superstitious and sinful” (WCF 22.7).
As for the “Reformed Orthodox of the Westminster Assembly . . . preferr[ing] the company of a Thomist to that of someone who denied simplicity, eternal generation, or God’s foreknowledge,” that seems like begging the question, depending upon what is meant by a Thomist. The Reformed Orthodox were keen on rejecting the errors of all who stumbled from the truth, regardless of what way or direction in which they fell. In WCF 1.6, for example, they say of Scripture that “nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men,” the latter being aimed against Rome and the former against the radical sects that believed in continuing revelation.[1]
So also with WCF 1.7’s statement asserting Scripture’s perspicuity, which says that “not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them,” which is directed against both Rome and the sects that emphasized the “inner light,” as well as WCF 1.8’s assertion that Scripture had been transmitted and preserved faithfully.[2] And recall that the open practice of Romanism was forbidden by law at the time in which the Westminster Assembly was meeting, and that the radical sects such as the Quakers often fell afoul of the law as well in those days. This leads me to suspect that the difference between us and our forebears on this point is not that we keep company with one rather than the other, but that we keep company with one where they would not have kept company with either. Trueman’s broad point about many evangelicals needing to further clarify (or purify) their theology proper is indeed sound, but well might we fear that the movement urging them to do so sometimes leans a bit too far in the other direction, keeps the wrong company, or presents itself, as here, in a garb that is not wholly accurate to the case at hand.
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks (Simpsonville), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation. 
[1] The Westminster Assembly and Its Work, B.B. Warfield, p.199
[2] Ibid., pp. 209, 212
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All of this invites questions of great practical consequence: why did we bring into our own denomination a requirement – this vow to support – that was only introduced into our predecessor in the years of her growing infidelity, that was used to coerce and intimidate the faithful remnant, and that was not precedented (in the actual meaning of that abused word) in over 220 years of earlier Presbyterian polity in this country?

In a previous article I discussed somewhat the meaning and implications of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA)’s fourth membership vow (see footnote for text).[1] Since that time an earlier work of a very learned gentleman, Barry Waugh, that gives a history of how that vow came to be included in the PCA’s Book of Church Order (BCO) has been republished here. It is worth the read, as is much else that Waugh has written, but as its extensive documentation makes it somewhat long (approximately 3,000 words), I’ll summarize his point here.
In 1929 the PCA’s predecessor, the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS), added the vow in question as a response to a practical difficulty that had arisen due to the increasing popularity of what were then called voluntary agencies, or what we would now call parachurch ministries. These had so much increased in popularity that the church believed its own ministry was being adversely affected by being deprived of its members’ funds and talents. To ensure that such parachurch entities did not undermine the church, and in keeping with the historic Presbyterian belief that Christ established the church to advance his kingdom, the church added the vow in question to emphasize the importance of members supporting the institutional church in its own work. When the PCA later formed, this vow was one of the many things she brought with her from the PCUS.
Whether it should have done so is a separate question. As Waugh amply documents, there were no membership vows in the first approximately 200 years of Presbyterian history in this country. And as other reading will attest, worldliness and unbelief, clothed in the respectable monikers of reason, science, scholarship, necessity, utility, and the usual gamut of high-sounding and urgent rhetoric, had made a deep infiltration in the PCUS, so that by 1929 that denomination was far along the road of infidelity. When the seeds of unbelief began to bear a wicked fruit with increased severity and frequency in the succeeding generation, there arose that movement of reaction that ultimately lead to the formation of the PCA in 1973.
And it is my understanding, gleaned especially from Frank Smith’s early history of the PCA, The History of the Presbyterian Church in America, that at that time, and in the years prior, the unbelievers in the PCUS appealed to the membership vow in question (and its associated notion of church participation) to coerce people into remaining in the denomination and providing it with full support. Whenever individuals, churches, or presbyteries withheld financial support from certain agencies, sought to separate, or were otherwise involved in the continuing church movement or refused to give full support to the program of apostasy in the PCUS, they were accused of infidelity. (“The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light . . .”) Others were restrained by their own consciences from supporting the continuing church and joining the PCA on account of the vow in question.
And taken literally, the vow places members under a burden that does not accord with the New Testament conception of stewardship. The New Testament records the church saying its members’ possessions are theirs to dispose of as they determine best: speaking of land and its sale, Peter tells a member (Acts 5:4a) “while it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal?” And elsewhere Paul, collecting an offering for the saints in Judea, says that “each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:7). Indeed, though he urges the Corinthians to “excel in this act of grace” (8:7), he emphasizes that this is an appeal for voluntary generosity (“I say this not as a command,” v. 8).
Such verses attest an enormous authority in stewardship to the individual believer vis-à-vis the church. And on the opposite side of things, far from insisting upon his rights, Paul says he was pleased to not live off the contributions of the Corinthians and Thessalonians (1 Cor. 9:6-18; 2 Cor. 12:13; 1 Thess. 2:9). And yet the fourth vow requires support to the institutional church to the best of one’s ability. I do not believe it is sufficiently appreciated how grave and strict this requirement is, and of how much it requires of the individual member.
Consider some examples. If one is able, after all lawful debts, liabilities, necessities, and prudential savings, to give $12,000 a year to the church, and instead gives $11,000, opting to give $300 to the state forest system and another $700 to the local rescue mission, he has not given to the church to the best of his ability. If someone has a free Wednesday night for church work and instead opts to go elsewhere, he is not supporting the church to his best ability. In each case he had the time or money at hand to support the church and used it for something else. There is no understanding of that being “to the best of your ability” that such examples meet.
Now at this point you might say I am engaged in a reductio ad absurdum argument, and being rather silly by taking this far more seriously than our people and courts are accustomed to taking it. Actually, I would say that I am taking the words in view in their plain, common meaning, and that our ethical thinkers have always thought that words related to vows and covenants are to be thus taken in their common, plain meaning.
Consider the first membership vow: “Do you acknowledge yourselves to be sinners in the sight of God, justly deserving His displeasure, and without hope save in His sovereign mercy?” All PCA courts understand this in a traditional Reformed light. “Sinners” means ‘people who are fundamentally alienated from God by their very nature, and who cannot truly obey his will or be reconciled to him unless they are born again of his Spirit.’  “Without hope” means ‘inescapably doomed to be condemned and punished by his just displeasure because of our sins.’ “His sovereign mercy” means ‘his grace as manifested in unconditional election, calling, regeneration, justification, sanctification, and final glorification,’ and is deemed monergistic in nature, not as some sort of Pelagian, Semi-Pelagian, or Arminian ‘prevenient grace’ that has been dispensed indiscriminately so that all people have the natural ability to repent and believe apart from a particular work of the Holy Spirit.
Now if we understand such words in light of the common, public meaning of them as expressed in our doctrinal standards, why would we not also interpret “best of your ability” in light of its society-wide common meaning? If it is within your ability to do something and you do not, you have ipso facto not done it to the best of your ability. We confess that “an oath is to be taken in the plain and common sense of the words, without equivocation, or mental reservation” (WCF 22-4). And again, “best of your ability” has a plain meaning in contemporary English.
All of this invites questions of great practical consequence: why did we bring into our own denomination a requirement – this vow to support – that was only introduced into our predecessor in the years of her growing infidelity, that was used to coerce and intimidate the faithful remnant, and that was not precedented (in the actual meaning of that abused word) in over 220 years of earlier Presbyterian polity in this country? One which seems to contradict other fundamental principles of our polity (BCO Pref. II.1, 7), runs contrary to the New Testament conception of such matters, and which forces a person to swear a strict allegiance to an institution that history attests might fall away? We have twice escaped institutional apostasy (Rome and the PCUS), and the Scriptures abundantly attest that unbelief and rebellion have been common in the church as Old Testament Israel, and that they will be so in these last days as well (Matt. 24:9-13; 2 Thess. 2:3). And yet we think it wise to force people to vow support to an institution that could fall away from Christ and make war upon his people?
The only answer to all of this is that the fourth membership vow ought to be taken as requiring support to the true church universal, which is invisible, and only to any visible church body insofar as it bears the marks of being a participant in the one true church. Further, that the support in view is a general support, directed by one’s own conscience and toward the church as both organism and institution, and that supporting extra-ecclesiastical entities that advance Christ’s kingdom is not contrary to the vow in view (comp. Mk. 9:38-41), but actually a commendable and effective way of fulfilling it. And last, that a vow taken to enter a covenant cannot be more restrictive than the covenant entered, nor oblige one to things that are not inherent in that covenant, nor deny one’s rights under that covenant. The covenant between believers and Christ and his church includes both obligations and rights, and we hold that those obligations are those laid down in the Scriptures (that is, voluntary giving according to one’s means), and that those rights include a large and wide (but by no means absolute) right of conscience in stewardship. To conceive the vow in view in the typical meaning of the words without these further considerations would entail our denomination in a soul tyranny worthy rather of Rome than the proponents of the individual believer’s rights of conscience.
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks (Simpsonville), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation. 
[1] “Do you promise to support the Church in its worship and work to the best of your ability?” BCO 57-5
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Our objection to worshiping images is that it is idolatry because that worship does not pass through them to Christ, but is actually just worshiping artwork in the same way that ancient idolaters were actually just worshiping statues. Such images do not direct our devotion to Christ, but away from him (who is invisible to us by God’s sovereign will) and to mistaken notions of one of his two natures. They are not necessary for our devotion – for they are not necessary for us to worship the Father and the Spirit.

The teaching of Thomas Aquinas has been much debated recently, and it is advantageous that we consider his own writings and not merely others about them. Below is the full text of Aquinas’ consideration of worshiping images of Christ from his Summa Theologiae IIIa, Q.25, Art. 3, followed by my commentary upon it. Note that when Thomas uses “latria” or “adoration” he means worship: “worship called forth by God, and given exclusively to Him as God, is designated by the Greek name latreia (latinized, latria), for which the best translation that our language affords is the word Adoration” (New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia).
Article 3: Whether the image of Christ should be adored with the adoration of “latria”?
Objection 1: It would seem that Christ’s image should not be adored with the adoration of “latria.” For it is written (Ex. 20:4): “Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of anything.” But no adoration should be given against the commandment of God. Therefore Christ’s image should not be adored with the adoration of “latria.”
Objection 2: Further, we should have nothing in common with the works of the Gentiles, as the Apostle says (Eph. 5:11). But the Gentiles are reproached principally for that “they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man,” as is written (Rm. 1:23). Therefore Christ’s image is not to be adored with the adoration of “latria.”
Objection 3: Further, to Christ the adoration of “latria” is due by reason of His Godhead, not of His humanity. But the adoration of “latria” is not due to the image of His Godhead, which is imprinted on the rational soul. Much less, therefore, is it due to the material image which represents the humanity of Christ Himself.
Objection 4: Further, it seems that nothing should be done in the Divine worship that is not instituted by God; wherefore the Apostle (1 Cor. 11:23) when about to lay down the doctrine of the sacrifice of the Church, says: “I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you.” But Scripture does not lay down anything concerning the adoration of images. Therefore, Christ’s image is not to be adored with the adoration of “latria.”
On the contrary, Damascene (De Fide Orth. iv, 16) quotes Basil as saying: “The honor given to an image reaches to the prototype,” i.e., the exemplar. But the exemplar itself—namely, Christ—is to be adored with the adoration of “latria;” therefore also His image.
I answer that, As the Philosopher says (De Memor. et Remin. i), there is a twofold movement of the mind towards an image: one indeed towards the image itself as a certain thing; another, towards the image in so far as it is the image of something else. And between these movements there is this difference; that the former, by which one is moved towards an image as a certain thing, is different from the movement towards the thing: whereas the latter movement, which is towards the image as an image, is one and the same as that which is towards the thing. Thus, therefore, we must say that no reverence is shown to Christ’s image, as a thing—for instance, carved or painted wood: because reverence is not due save to a rational creature. It follows therefore that reverence should be shown to it, in so far only as it is an image. Consequently, the same reverence should be shown to Christ’s image as to Christ Himself. Since, therefore, Christ is adored with the adoration of “latria,” it follows that His image should be adored with the adoration of “latria.”
Reply to Objection 1: This commandment does not forbid the making of any graven thing or likeness, but the making thereof for the purpose of adoration, wherefore it is added: “Thou shalt not adore them nor serve them.” And because, as stated above, the movement towards the image is the same as the movement towards the thing, adoration thereof is forbidden in the same way as adoration of the thing whose image it is. Wherefore in the passage quoted we are to understand the prohibition to adore those images which the Gentiles made for the purpose of venerating their own gods, i.e., the demons, and so it is premised: “Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.” But no corporeal image could be raised to the true God Himself, since He is incorporeal; because, as Damascene observes (De Fide Orth. iv, 16): “It is the highest absurdity and impiety to fashion a figure of what is Divine.” But because in the New Testament God was made man, He can be adored in His corporeal image.
Reply to Objection 2: The Apostle forbids us to have anything in common with the “unfruitful works” of the Gentiles, but not with their useful works. Now the adoration of images must be numbered among the unfruitful works in two respects. First, because some of the Gentiles used to adore the images themselves, as things, believing that there was something Divine therein, on account of the answers which the demons used to give in them, and on account of other such like wonderful effects. Secondly, on account of the things of which they were images; for they set up images to certain creatures, to whom in these images they gave the veneration of “latria.” Whereas we give the adoration of “latria” to the image of Christ, Who is true God, not for the sake of the image, but for the sake of the thing whose image it is, as stated above.
Reply to Objection 3: Reverence is due to the rational creature for its own sake. Consequently, if the adoration of “latria” were shown to the rational creature in which this image is, there might be an occasion of error—namely, lest the movement of adoration might stop short at the man, as a thing, and not be carried on to God, Whose image he is. This cannot happen in the case of a graven or painted image in insensible material.
Reply to Objection 4: The Apostles, led by the inward instinct of the Holy Ghost, handed down to the churches certain instructions which they did not put in writing, but which have been ordained, in accordance with the observance of the Church as practiced by the faithful as time went on. Wherefore the Apostle says (2 Thess. 2:14): “Stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word”—that is by word of mouth—“or by our epistle”—that is by word put into writing. Among these traditions is the worship of Christ’s image. Wherefore it is said that Blessed Luke painted the image of Christ, which is in Rome.
Commentary
Aquinas bases his claim that it is proper to worship the image of Christ on Basil’s opinion that worship passes through images and to what they purport to represent: since it is proper to worship Christ, therefore it is thought proper to worship images of him. This false premise contravenes Scripture’s prohibition of images (Ex. 20:4) and its conception of idolatry as consisting in the absurd worship of inanimate objects (Isa. 44:9-20; Jer. 10); and note that Aquinas’ Scripture references are found in the objections which he conspires to refute, not his own position. The only verse he references in support is 2 Thess. 2:14, which he interprets as providing blanket approval for Rome’s traditions, their frequent contradiction of Scripture’s explicit commands notwithstanding.
Aquinas’ answer is also based on Aristotle’s reasoning (“the Philosopher” in the Summa) about how thought works in adoration. Scripture warns us to beware lest human philosophy lead us astray: “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ” (Col. 2:8). The Aristotelian notion Aquinas propounds here is mistaken, for he distinguishes regarding an image as it is in itself and regarding it insofar as it represents something else. Since an image of Christ is not regarded for its own sake, but insofar as it intends to represent Christ, Aquinas reasons it is proper to worship his images.
By such reasoning idolatry cannot exist, provided the worshiper regards an idol not as a statue but as representing what it purports to represent. This contradicts Scripture’s conception of the evil of idolatry as reducing its committers to the folly of worshiping mere objects.
No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?” (Isa. 44:19).
In his Reply to Objection 1, Aquinas reasons that the evil of idolatry is that it is directed to false gods, not to objects as such. Again, that is not Scripture’s position (Ps. 135:15-18), and in this Aquinas’ reliance on Aristotle corrupts his exegesis. It might appear that 1 Cor. 10:14-22 supports Aquinas. Yet the best understanding of that passage’s teaching that idolaters offer sacrifice to demons is that idolaters’ worship does not pass through idols to demons, but by worshiping idols they do the bidding of the demons who use such worship of objects to ensnare them (1 Cor. 12:2; Gal. 4:8).
Aquinas regards it as improper to image God, since he is incorporeal. Images of Christ are acceptable, however, because in Christ God has taken to himself a “corporeal image.” In this lies much of the error of images of Christ and why many do not approve them for any use, much less worship. No one has ever portrayed Christ in the fullness of his being; at the most he can portray his humanity, and in fact he cannot even do that. The most he can do is portray what he imagines Christ’s humanity looked like, but long experience has shown that this never escapes the distortions of the artist’s preconceived cultural bias – hence in the West, Jesus is ever portrayed as a pale European, not a Levantine Jew. We should not worship some artist’s ridiculous, culture-bound notion of Jesus’ humanity. Such attempts to portray him also fail because they seek to portray him as he was during his first advent, not as he is now. Jesus’ present appearance is such that John strained the limits of description to give an idea of it (Rev. 1:12-16), and that it overwhelmed him (v. 17). No human art can accurately represent Christ as he is now.
To summarize, our objection to worshiping images is that it is idolatry because that worship does not pass through them to Christ, but is actually just worshiping artwork in the same way that ancient idolaters were actually just worshiping statues. Such images do not direct our devotion to Christ, but away from him (who is invisible to us by God’s sovereign will) and to mistaken notions of one of his two natures. They are not necessary for our devotion – for they are not necessary for us to worship the Father and the Spirit.
In this lies the weakness of ‘retrieving’ Thomas. It is a strange notion that renewing theology requires retrieving someone who taught the goodness of idolatry on the basis of self-justifying church tradition and Aristotelian philosophy, and in direct contradiction to Scripture, the exegesis of which was actually perverted by the tradition and philosophy in view. It is something of a mystery how that comports with 1 Cor. 5:11 (“I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is . . . an idolater”).
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks (Simpsonville), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation. 
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…civil righteousness is not a righteousness that will justify those that possess it. It is righteous only by sinful human standards, not by that perfect standard which God requires (Matt. 5:48; Jas. 2:10). The righteousness by which he justifies comes only through faith in Christ (Rom. 3:21-26, 28; Gal. 2:16; Eph. 2:8; Phil. 3:9), a thing which many Israelis and their government deny. Let us all therefore pray for the peace of Israel, but especially for that spiritual peace with God which she currently lacks (Rom. 5:1; comp. Isa. 32:17). For her salvation will not consist in earthly prosperity or triumph in this or any other war, but in her reconciliation to the God who created her and revealed himself in her land as Jesus of Nazareth. 

War is not a matter of morality. Morality matters in war, as in business and politics and every other endeavor, but war is not itself a question of right and wrong. To be in the right is not enough to commend fighting a war. There are many other factors that must be considered, such as the probability of winning, the desired outcome, and whether the necessary sacrifices will be worth it all.
War is, in fact, a question of politics, economics, and prudence. By economics I do not mean anything to do with jobs, commerce, or any of the other things politicians mean when they talk about economic matters. Economics in its proper (as opposed to its popular/political) definition is the study of the use of scarce resources that have alternative uses (to paraphrase Lionel Robbins’ definition). Few things make the scarcity of resources felt more acutely than war: there are only so many troops and so much money and materiel to use in waging war, and it tends to consume them in enormous amounts with frightful rapidity. A nation can be morally superior to its rival, but that will not avail it if its military and economy are insufficient to overcome the unrighteous enemy in war. This economic consideration received the explicit mention of our Lord (Lk. 14:31-32).
And so also with the question of politics. What is militarily feasible is not always politically feasible or advisable. In the Afghan War it would have been militarily feasible for us to have invaded the border regions of Pakistan where the Taliban had sheltered with the local tribes. But it would not have been politically advisable, for it would have brought about a breach with Pakistan, further radicalized many people there against us, and deprived us of that necessary (if unsteady and partial) support which we received from her.
And where something is not economically or politically feasible it is not prudent to go ahead with it, even in those cases where one has been wronged or is unquestionably right in a dispute. It is this which many pundits have forgotten in the fortnight since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th. Yes, this is about as much a clear-cut matter of good versus evil as can be imagined in this world. Hamas is in the foremost ranks of depravity, as its actions show, and Israel is, by contrast, one of the most honorable and humane belligerents in history.
But that is largely beside the point. Hamas was wrong to attack Israel as it did, and while Israel has the right to defend itself, including by a counteroffensive into Gaza to destroy Hamas’s warfighting and civilian-murdering capabilities (i.e., its very existence), that says nothing about whether it is economically or politically feasible to do so. It takes but little reflection to see that Israel is in a difficult position. If it invades and destroys Hamas but then withdraws it is only a matter of time before a new Hamas arises. Gaza is essentially a giant refugee camp with squalid conditions that seem to breed an anti-Israel culture that will breed a new Hamas even if the current one is eradicated. Such an incursion is perhaps prudent in the short term, but it doesn’t provide a long-term solution – and this is now the third time Israel has invaded Gaza since it ended its previous occupation in 2005.
Alternatively, Israel could conquer Gaza and expel the inhabitants, except that it is not clear where they would go. The Arab nations refuse to take any refugees, and if any appreciable number made it to the West Bank that would almost certainly throw it into the hands of Hamas and be worse for Israel’s security, Gaza being much smaller and easier to guard than the West Bank. Israel could try to force another nation to take them by force, but that would entail another major regional war, probably undo all the diplomacy of the last 40 plus years, appreciably unsettle the global economy, and put the US in a difficult position politically and diplomatically.
Or Israel could once again occupy Gaza, as it did from 1967 to 2005, though that would entail all the difficulties of a military occupation. And given the security troubles it has just experienced in its own country, it seems reasonable to think they wouldn’t be easier in a place with a hostile culture. Lastly, Israel could forego an invasion, though that would embolden Hamas, earn them more recruits, and leave their offensive capabilities largely intact.
In short, Israel is in a difficult spot, and it is not clear how she should act. She is in this spot, not because of any lack of courage or martial prowess, but because of the current political environment; and that means that her being right has nothing to do with the question of what is prudent for her to do right now. One can say she should conquer Gaza, or occupy it, or eliminate Hamas without permanent annexation or occupation. Those are questions of military policy that have nothing to do with our faith; and they are ones about which many commentators are not fit to offer their opinions.
The only thing our faith has to say about the matter is that all people need personal forgiveness and that there is no such thing as a national righteousness (in war or otherwise) that saves anyone’s soul, as well as that the actual outworking of God’s providence has demonstrated the truth of my claims above about the nature of war and civil righteousness. Judah, even in the tenure of her righteous kings, was dwarfed by Israel, which went astray from the first. United Israel, even at its height under David and Solomon, was an insignificant backwater compared to many of her neighbors (Amos 7:5), and especially so in comparison to the wicked pagan empires by which she was conquered in succession: Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Macedon, the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, and Rome.
If civil righteousness meant earthly prowess and military success, we would not expect these things to be so; and granting that foreign oppression and defeat were punishments for infidelity to the Lord (Deut. 28:25, 31-34), there is still the fact that Israel was sometimes more righteous than its defeaters (Habakkuk’s complaint, 1:12-17), and that civil righteousness did not guarantee Israel’s military success. When David took a census (perhaps with a view toward territorial expansion, 2 Sam. 22:45-48), God regarded it as sin and punished Israel (2 Sam. 24). We might think that God would wish for the only civilly righteous nation on Earth to be as large as possible,[1] and yet we see in that episode that this was not God’s intention. In the times of the old covenant too God’s kingdom was spiritual and not synonymous with the Jewish nation, nor did its interests preclude other nations excelling Israel or ruling her.
In his providence both Israel and other nations had their places, and the development of his kingdom and the revelation of his Messiah did not require – and indeed, may have been hindered by – Israel experiencing imperial status and military success. It is conceivable that, even if Israel had been faithful to her covenant with God, she would still have been a small nation of little earthly significance. The greater her temporal glory, the harder it would have been for Israel to realize that God’s kingdom did not lie in such things, was not limited to her but was a spiritual gift for his elect among all peoples.
And so it is in our day as well. Civil righteousness is always imperfect, incomplete, and prone to rapid disappearance when circumstances change. It is not so essential to a nation’s legitimacy as to cause it to cease to be a nation where it is lost or to preclude a nation that lacks it from attaining earthly prominence or defeating a comparatively more righteous nation. Great empires are seldom morally commendable, but that has not kept God from using them for his purposes (Ex. 9:16; 14:17; Prov. 16:4).
The most important thing, however, is that civil righteousness does nothing to ensure the personal salvation of a nation’s citizens. Indeed, it may prove the snare that blinds them to their need for personal forgiveness or makes them imagine that the victims of cruelty and defeat proved thereby that they suffered their fate as divine punishment. Consider this episode from Jesus’ First Advent:
There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Lk. 13:1-3).
The immediate meaning of this is that suffering says nothing of the moral state of its victims, and that all people will perish unless they personally repent their sin. Its practical implication is of great importance as well, however, and that is that Christ’s primary concern is not with the justice of temporal affairs, but with the personal, eternal fate of individuals. Pilate’s act here bore the same character as Hamas’ recent actions: it was an act of bloodlustful murder by a foreign oppressor that included the blasphemous desecration of the victims’ bodies. And yet Jesus did not say that this called for any earthly retribution, much less commend his hearers to rebel against Rome on its account. Rather, he used it as an occasion to warn them to turn their attention to matters of eternal consequence that lay within their personal power and responsibility.
And so it should be in our case as well. How Israel responds to Hamas’ recent outrage is a military and political question that is beyond our immediate influence as citizens of a nation several thousand miles away. Justice and prudence may commend that we personally intervene on Israel’s behalf (e.g., by donating medical supplies) or urge our government to do so in a responsible way – indeed, I think they do commend such things – but the most important thing, more important by far than what will transpire in the coming days of the present war, is that we remember that the wars and kingdoms of this world will soon pass away, whereas the souls of those that are involved will endure forever. Looking after the soul is the key thing, and it is just there that Israel, for all her civil righteousness, greatly needs the Lord’s mercy.
For at the last, civil righteousness is not a righteousness that will justify those that possess it. It is righteous only by sinful human standards, not by that perfect standard which God requires (Matt. 5:48; Jas. 2:10). The righteousness by which he justifies comes only through faith in Christ (Rom. 3:21-26, 28; Gal. 2:16; Eph. 2:8; Phil. 3:9), a thing which many Israelis and their government deny. Let us all therefore pray for the peace of Israel, but especially for that spiritual peace with God which she currently lacks (Rom. 5:1; comp. Isa. 32:17). For her salvation will not consist in earthly prosperity or triumph in this or any other war, but in her reconciliation to the God who created her and revealed himself in her land as Jesus of Nazareth.
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks (Simpsonville), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation. 
[1] 2 Sam. 24:1 says that David’s census arose, ultimately, because God was angry with Israel, which seems to contradict my characterization of it as the only civilly righteous nation on earth, as God’s anger would have been provoked by Israelite sin. But as I show elsewhere, civil righteousness is always conceived as such from a human standpoint and does not equal righteousness in the sight of God, nor fully accord with his providential will concerning the kingdom of God. From a human standpoint, Israel in David’s day would be considered just, but obviously she did not fully please God.
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Believers make their vows to the Church universal, and while they should be supportive of their local churches and not leave one lightly, nonetheless someone who transfers his membership to another local branch of the one Church is not guilty of infidelity to his PCA membership vows. Neither is the promise to submit to the church’s government a blanket promise of unyielding submission.

In a recent article at PCA Polity, Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) pastor Zachary Garris discusses the membership vows that all members of PCA churches take when they are accepted as members. His aim is to encourage a proper understanding of their solemnity, not only for their own sake, but also as part of a larger testimony to the truth in a society which is, alas, awash with insincerity, dishonesty, and self-seeking. His basic points are indisputable: a vow is a most solemn obligation, and there is a tendency in both church and society to neglect this somber truth. We must somewhat differ as to the particulars of his conception of the nature of the PCA membership vows, however.
Garris says that the fourth and fifth vows[1] mean that members promise to “yield to the Session when it makes a decision that the member disagrees with (‘support the Church’ and ‘study its purity and peace’),” and that “transferring membership to another church for insufficient reasons is also a violation of these vows,” in addition to such clear violations as “promoting false teaching or factions in the church.” That entails obvious difficulties: who is to say what qualify as “insufficient reasons” for a membership transfer? One’s own conscience? The session of the church one wishes to leave? That of the one to which they are transferring? Acceptable reasons for leaving a local church are not enumerated in any authoritative document that the PCA recognizes, and it is likely that people differ widely in what they consider insufficient reasons to leave a church.
There is also the practical difficulty that a church that receives a member from another church ipso facto regards the member’s reasons for transfer as good, or at the least, as being a matter about which it has no business inquiring; the same might be said of a church that has been left when it grants a letter of transfer. One wonders what would happen if a church attempted to act upon Garris’ conception here and refused transfer to a member because it deemed his reasons were insufficient. Any attempt to implement an arrangement by which only sufficient reasons were regarded as faithful to one’s sworn responsibilities of membership would require a member to state his reasons for wishing to leave to the sessions of both the church being left and that one being entered, as well as for them to jointly assess whether the reasons were deemed valid.
This would entail great difficulties. What if the churches disagreed about their sufficiency? What if the member had a good reason for leaving which good manners or prudence caused him to conceal? There are many people who have left churches because they thought the leadership incompetent or because they felt they had been wronged by their failure of leadership in a crisis. Are we quite sure we wish to expose people to the unpleasantry of having to explain and possibly justify why they are leaving to both the church being left and that being entered? That seems like a fine way to empty our pews, not least because it would entail needless intrusiveness and subjection of the individual believer’s freedom of conscience to the church as institution, something we elsewhere deprecate explicitly – the first preliminary principle of our constitution says that “God alone is Lord of the conscience” and “the rights of private judgment in all matters that respect religion are universal and inalienable.” Precisely which local church to attend would seem to be a “right of private judgment” of utmost importance.
To be clear, Garris does not suggest that churches should begin refusing membership transfers or interrogating members that desire them. But ideas have consequences, and it is not unreasonable or unfair to ponder the implications of an idea, even one that is made somewhat in passing. And judging by the minutes of the General Assembly and the Standing Judicial Commission, PCA churches don’t need any further ideas about how to drive sheep from our fold by heavy-handed notions of how to exercise church authority.
Of greater concern is that the notion that one commits oathbreaking by leaving a church for insufficient reasons seems to proceed on a misunderstanding of the church as it is conceived in the PCA Book of Church Order (BCO). The BCO distinguishes between the Church universal and local churches by means of capitalization: the capitalized “Church” means either the Church universal or the PCA in its entirety, whereas the lower case refers to a local/particular church (e.g., BCO 1- 5; 2-3; 8-3; 11-4; and 13-9). BCO 57-5, where the membership vows are prescribed, uses the capitalized “Church,” meaning it does not refer to a local church but to the Church universal or the PCA as a whole. Exactly which is not clear from the text itself, but as will be seen below, this seems to be a reference to the visible Church universal of which the PCA is a part.
With this subtle but consequential stylistic variation Garris’ point about insufficient reasons falls apart. For as each local church is a branch of the one Church – BCO 2-3: “It is according to scriptural example that the Church should be divided into many individual churches” – and as one’s membership vow is to support the capital-c Church, then moving from one local church to another is not a sinful violation of one’s membership vows, but a perfectly legitimate use of one’s liberty that is commensurate with those vows. Indeed, the very concept of being guilty of breaking one’s membership vows by transferring between local churches for insufficient reasons is an impossibility, provided one transfers to a true church, that is, to another manifestation of the Church to which one has sworn support.
This is not, let it be carefully noted, the mere opinion of the insignificant and decidedly-not-an-expert author of the present piece; it is the explicit statement of the PCA’s current Standing Judicial Commission (SJC). In 2020 the SJC handled a case (Case 2019-06), in which a petitioner had been removed from membership without process on the ground that she had made clear that she had “no intention of fulfilling her vows to submit to the authority of the Session” in her response to an arraignment for the charge of “failing to submit to the government and discipline of the church.” Without getting too much into minutiae, the petitioner subsequently began attendance at a local Baptist church, but also appealed to Presbytery that her removal from membership was unconstitutional. The SJC ruled that her complaint was valid, and that the session had erred by “conflating the ‘not guilty’ plea with a statement definitively indicating that the Petitioner had no intention to fulfill her vows.” In addition, they said that:
The Session erred by failing to determine whether the Petitioner could fulfill the duties of membership in another branch of the visible church. BCO 38-4 [removal without process] requires a session to render a judgment on whether the member will fulfill membership obligations in any branch of the Church.
And again, that:
This component of review wisely affords a session the opportunity to evaluate a member’s actions and statements thoroughly, to determine, among other things, whether the member’s actions are applicable only in one local PCA church, or more broadly, to any branch of the Church.
And lastly:
The Session and Presbytery have confirmed that in the time since she made the BCO 40-5 report, the Petitioner has joined another branch of the visible Church, indicating at least some willingness to fulfill membership obligations in that branch. Our churches should conform to the provision of BCO 38-4 and examine whether a member will fulfill membership obligations in another church prior to carrying out the erasure.
In other words, joining another local church, even one in a different, non-Reformed denomination, satisfies the responsibilities of one’s membership vows. (Provided, of course, that the duties of attendance, peace-seeking, etc. are actually performed there.)
The same case leads us to a similar conclusion regarding Garris’ opinion that the fourth membership vow means one must “yield to the Session when it makes a decision that the member disagrees with.” The petitioner above had been accused of “failing to submit to the government and discipline of the church” because she had filed for a divorce that the session believed was without scriptural warrant and which they had counseled her to avoid. She disagreed that the divorce was unjustified. The SJC ruled that her complaint was valid, and in so doing asserted that the petitioner had a right to “consider, but respectfully disagree with, the Session’s conclusion” that she should not divorce her husband, and that such action “would not, in itself, be a violation of membership vow 5 or de facto evidence of ‘failing to submit to the government and discipline of the church.’” It further said:
A member’s responsibility is to seriously and respectfully consider the counsel. But there may be many instances where a Session advises it regards something as sinful, without the member sinning by not following the advice. 
This later elaboration dealt with questions of conduct about which believers often differ, but which some believers sometimes elevate to the level of legal duty (the acceptability of alcohol consumption, how to observe the Sabbath, style of dress, etc.), and in it the SJC affirmed that one’s vow to submit to the government of the church is not absolute or unconditional, and that it does not involve a surrender of one’s own rights. And as one retains the right of exercising his conscience in the conduct of his or her own affairs, so also does one retain the right to dissent where it believes a session has sinned in its actions. This is inherent in the vow to study the church’s purity and peace and finds scriptural warrant in the admonition to test all things (Rom. 12:2; 1 Thess. 5:21), and in the example of believers confronting other believers when they do wrong.
Without impugning the bulk of Garris’ article, the above considerations lead us to politely demur from his two suggestions considered here. Believers make their vows to the Church universal, and while they should be supportive of their local churches and not leave one lightly, nonetheless someone who transfers his membership to another local branch of the one Church is not guilty of infidelity to his PCA membership vows. Neither is the promise to submit to the church’s government a blanket promise of unyielding submission (as Garris’ statement arguably seems to imply). Inherent in it is the understanding that one retains those rights of private judgment, conscience, and appeal to higher authority which the PCA so zealously asserts, and that there are occasions where wisdom, practical considerations, or the need to oppose sin will lead one to refuse assent to the actions of a local session, perhaps by leaving the local church in question. Charity commends hoping that Garris would agree with much of what has been written here, but a defense of the rights of PCA members required considering the actual content and probable implications of what he did write, not the presumably more responsible body of his doctrine on this point that did not appear in his recent article.
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks (Simpsonville), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation. 
[1] From Book of Church Order chapter 57, section 5. Vow 4: Do you promise to support the Church in its worship and work to the best of your ability? Vow 5: Do you submit yourselves to the government and discipline of the Church, and promise to study its purity and peace?
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None of this is to defend the cruelties associated with slavery. It is simply to say that Brown’s response was the wrong one, and that we should neither approve it nor celebrate him. Brown was celebrated for his militancy, and he seems to have regarded such militancy as the proper fruit of the Christian faith.

In 1860 a newspaper called The Christian Watchman and Reflector published a series of letters from Charles Spurgeon, in one of which he denied rumors that the American publishers of his works excised material that might be offensive to slaveholders. Highly perturbed at the suggestion, Spurgeon said, amongst other things, that “any slaveholder who should show himself in our neighborhood would get a mark which he would carry to his grave, if it did not carry him there.” He finished the letter in view by saying that “John Brown is immortal in the memories of the good in England, and in my heart he lives.” Here we have a minister of the gospel with a high reputation and wide influence expressing his opinion with such fervor as to descend into talk of his neighbors possibly murdering foreign citizens and praising an insurrectionist.
This is of interest because the statement in view is cited as proof that many evangelicals condemned slavery at the same time that many southern Protestants were defending it. It is certainly proof of that sober truth, though there are plenty of other sources that make the same point that lack the regrettable character of Mr. Spurgeon’s statement here. To be sure, he did not say that he would approve such lawless violence, much less that he would participate; and it is conceivable that Victorian era Englishmen were not quite as prone to waylaying foreigners as Mr. Spurgeon suggests. It could be that he was so caught up in a fit of high dudgeon that he wrote more boldly than was warranted, and that the talk of lawless violence was idle banter.
Whatever the case, it was not in accord with the duty of his office to speak in such a manner, and it is a point of curiosity that contemporary critics of 1800s southern evangelical attitudes about slavery so readily latch upon examples such as this. Such critics are quick to point at the perceived hypocrisy of claiming Christ while at the same time defending a civil institution that oppressed its participants and was often attended by great physical cruelty. And so in finding grounds to condemn the violence and hypocrisy of slaveholding they . . . . latch upon examples of evangelicals mentioning violence approvingly.
This is a strange method, surely, and it goes far to undermine the critics’ own moral authority. Why, pray tell, do we consider slavery wrong? Is it not because it does violence to the dignity of its unwilling participants, holding them in bondage and subjecting them, in many cases, to harsh punishments for flight or disobedience? Is it not because of the chain and the lash, the separation of families and the prohibition of literacy, and because of all the other things that denied equal protection and rights under the law and reduced slaves to being a permanent under caste? Is it not because the whole institution denied them their rights as human beings whose nature is no different from that of people of other classes and ethnicities? Why then would it be any less evil to do similar things to other people, including slaveholders or people who are citizens or public officials of places where slavery was legal? Mistreatment is wrong regardless of who does it or why, and our Lord forbids vengeance (Lev. 19:18; Deut. 32:35; Rom. 12:19; Heb. 10:30) and prohibits former victims of oppression oppressing others in turn (Ex. 22:21; comp. Deut. 23:7).
It is here that John Brown enters the question. Many people in his day regarded him as a hero with few equals, and after his death he was hailed as a martyr and prophet, Henry David Thoreau saying that he had become “an angel of light” and a popular camp tune saying that he was “John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see.” That enthusiasm has not dimmed, it seems, for Christianity Today has published an article urging the glad acceptance of Brown as an evangelical hero.
John Brown was hanged for treason and murder for leading the seizure of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) as part of a scheme to forcibly abolish slavery in the southern states. Brown’s plan was to use his action to incite slaves in the surrounding areas to flee their masters and join his forces, after which they would march southward, collecting men and materiel as they went. Ostensibly his forces would fight only in self-defense if accosted.
That last bit makes for a large claim to swallow when we remember that Brown had already attained national notoriety for organizing private militants in the Bleeding Kansas crisis earlier in the 1850s. Brown had presided over the Pottawatomie Massacre, in which five men had been hacked to death in what can only be considered cold-blooded murder. The other facts are also against interpreting his plan and actions as a scheme of fomenting an armed-but-purely-defensive insurrection, such as that two of the five men his band killed at Harpers Ferry were unarmed. One was the mayor, the other a free black man who was the first victim and who was shot in the back. If these killings were against Brown’s intentions, as has been suggested, they nonetheless suggest that he had poor control over his force that he had trained for his occupation of the arsenal; and it is hard to imagine that he would have had any better control over the multitudes of strangers whom he expected to rally to his standard.
It is likely that arming large numbers of escaped slaves, whatever Brown’s ostensible intention, would have led to aggression and even the wanton taking of vengeance on their part. Virginia’s earlier slave revolt 28 years before (Nat Turner’s) had been attended by the killing of civilians, including women and children. It is simply not human nature for spontaneous mobs to act only in self-defense and to eschew all criminal and vengeful tendencies. And notwithstanding that Brown attempted to give legitimacy to his efforts by establishing a ‘provisional government’ replete with offices and constitution, what Brown actually attempted, whether he realized it or not, was to foment an enormous mob, probably the largest in the history of the country. Had he succeeded he would have been culpable for any excesses that such a mob committed, but as it was he gained very little support.
There is another fault with such an argument, which is that it is generally a principle of law that one cannot provoke resistance by threats or assault and then use force to repel the violence that ensues: the initial provocation makes one the aggressor, so that every subsequent action is a furtherance of the aggression and cannot be justified as defensive. Brown was the aggressor in the Harpers Ferry affair, for he started it by seizing the arsenal, and then continued it by taking hostages and preventing the lawful authorities from repossessing it or rescuing them. When it was then claimed that his subsequent fighting with state and federal forces was in self-defense (as his defense attempted at his trial), the claim is null – and more than a little brazen and absurd.
One cannot break into someone’s house and take him captive, and then say that he acted in self-defense by firing at the police when they surrounded the house. All notion of self-defense goes out the window when one first commences his criminal venture. And yet that is essentially what Brown did, except that he acted not merely against a single private individual and domicile, but against an entire commonwealth and its populace.
I have no desire to impugn the faith or integrity of those who have lionized Brown through the decades. Indeed, anyone who would allow that Spurgeon remark above to dissuade him from reading Spurgeon appreciatively would be doing himself an enormous disservice, for flights of indignation notwithstanding, Spurgeon was greatly used by God and is well worth reading. Remarks like that above are drowned out by the enormous quantities of edifying material he produced: it is as a flake of chaff in an ocean of grace.
But I do think that such people, be they past or present, are sorely mistaken on this point. There is nothing in the New Testament that justifies fomenting armed rebellion. Romans 13 says, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities” and “whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.” Granting the institution of southern slavery was evil, it does not follow that it should have been countered by violent force. “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all” (Rom. 12:17). Evil must be opposed righteously; and fomenting rebellion that was likely to lead to widespread bloodshed cannot be deemed righteous. It is in direct contradiction of the commands to “live peaceably with all” and “overcome evil with good” (12:18, 21).
And in the outcome of Brown’s misadventure at Harpers Ferry we see the wisdom of our Lord’s instructions on this point. Brown’s insurrection failed utterly. He gained only a handful of supporters among the local slave population; succeeded in getting himself, many of his men, and several citizens killed; and further aggravated the already tense relations between North and South, ultimately playing an important role in provoking secession and the subsequent war that killed more than 620,000 men.
Over against all this we must remember that Christ’s kingdom is not of this world, and that he did not come to establish it by means of force (Jn. 18:36). When someone mentioned an example of Pilate’s cruelty toward the Jews (including sacrilegious murder), Christ declined to cry aloud for temporal justice and instead urged his hearers to take heed for their souls and repent while they had time (Lk. 13:1-3). His way is not the way of social revolution, but of patient long-suffering (Matt. 5:39) and of repaying evil with good (Lk. 6:28; Rom. 12:14, 20; 1 Pet. 3:9). Those who, like Brown, attempt to find in Christ’s message a justification for armed revolution contradict the essence of that message, and many of its particulars (2 Tim. 2:24; Tit. 3:1-2; Heb. 12:14; Jas. 3:17).
None of this is to defend the cruelties associated with slavery. It is simply to say that Brown’s response was the wrong one, and that we should neither approve it nor celebrate him. Brown was celebrated for his militancy, and he seems to have regarded such militancy as the proper fruit of the Christian faith. In his speech at his conviction he appealed to Scripture as justifying his actions:
Court acknowledges, too, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed, which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament, which teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me further to remember them that are in bonds as bound with them. I endeavored to act up to that instruction.
When someone celebrates Brown he is therefore celebrating a man who contradicted the teaching of Scripture under the guise of fulfilling it. Against this, consider these words and ponder whether John Brown’s behavior accords with them: “Whoever says he abides in him [Christ] ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 Jn. 2:6). Christ walked in the way of works of mercy and witness, and his death redeemed the souls of many. Brown walked in the way of the sword and came to the end which Christ predicted of those who do so (Matt. 26:52), and his death brought not peace but division and strife and a war that consumed multitudes. It is no part of our faith to honor such a man, and the scriptural data abundantly point the other way.
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks (Simpsonville), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation. 
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Some of the Reformers quote Aquinas approvingly, but their doing so is not abundant or unqualified, and much less does it suggest a praise of his person or a general commendation of his doctrine. The contemporary advocates of studying Thomas sometimes make it sound like the Reformers (and Puritans, et al) were Thomistic to the core and that their writings are brimming with use of his own. Granting that these are learned men worthy of a healthy respect and that I am a commoner, I must confess that I simply don’t see it.

From January 28, 2023 to January 28, 2025 the Roman communion is celebrating a jubilee of Thomas Aquinas to commemorate his birth, death, and canonization. As part of the celebrations the Vatican’s “Apostolic Penitentiary” has granted an indulgence which can be attained “under the usual conditions (sacramental confession, Eucharistic communion and prayer for the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff).” The homebound may attain the benefits “if, despising all their sins and with the intention of fulfilling the three usual conditions as soon as possible, they spiritually join in the Jubilee celebrations in front of an image of St Thomas Aquinas, offering to the merciful God their prayers.” Nor is this limited to the living. It can be attained for “the souls of the faithful departed still in purgatory” by those who take “a pilgrimage to a holy place connected with the Order of Friars Preachers, and there devoutly take part in the jubilee ceremonies, or at least devote a suitable time to pious recollection, concluding with the Lord’s Prayer, the symbol of faith and invocations of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of Saint Thomas Aquinas.” (Aquinas was a member of the Order of Preachers, or Dominican Order.)
Pilgrimages, purgatory, sacramental confession, indulgences, invoking saints and Mary, and praying before images of men . . . this episode demonstrates that after half a millennium Rome persists in the errors which sparked the Reformation. “Rome does not change and has not conceded any of her claims” (Herman Bavinck). And one of those things to which Rome appeals to justify her practices is the thought of Thomas Aquinas, hence Bavinck continues:
The Middle Ages remain the ideal to which all Roman Catholics aspire. The restoration of Thomistic philosophy by the encyclical of August 4,1879, seals this aspiration.
Bavinck is speaking here of Pope Leo XIII’s declaration Aeterni Patris, which commended Aquinas’ thought in glowing terms, calling him “the chief and master of all towers” and “the special bulwark and glory of the Catholic faith,” whose teaching is “the true and Catholic doctrine” (quoting Pope Urban V), “golden wisdom,” “angelic wisdom,” “immortal works,” on whose wings reason “can scarcely rise higher,” and such that “those who hold to it are never found swerving from the path of truth.” Leo says that the “ecumenical councils” held Aquinas in such “singular honor” that “one might almost say that Thomas took part and presided” over them, of which his “chief and special glory” was having his Summa laid upon the altar at the Council of Trent, along with scripture and papal declarations, from whence the council could “seek counsel, reason, and inspiration.”
That same spirit has found contemporary expression with “Thomas Joseph White and many others in the Thomistic Ressourcement movement (such as Gilles Emery, Matthew Levering, and Dominic Legge).”[1] This movement uses Aquinas’s thought to direct contemporary doctrinal instruction and ecumenical dialogue. Arguably such an approach is not fully Thomistic itself: Aquinas said that schismatics and heretics ought to be excommunicated and punished by the civil power (“secular arm”) – with death in the case of heretics. That’s a far cry from ecumenical dialogue; and, of course, Rome has historically considered Protestants as falling into both of those categories, albeit somewhat moderating its position in recent decades.
Of greater concern is that this movement has found welcome with some Protestant academics. Notable examples are seen in Credo Magazine’s recent Aquinas issue, and in the controversy which occurred when some Protestants (James White, Owen Strachan) criticized the popularization of Aquinas. A distinction must be made here between using Aquinas’s thought approvingly and celebrating it (or him). A distinction might also be made between using his thought in a careful way that emphasizes it is useful only for some topics and is erroneous at other points, and an approach which in its eagerness fails to sufficiently warn where Aquinas went wrong. Some Protestants have become so enamored with Aquinas that they have attempted to lay claim to him. John Gerstner published an article titled “Aquinas was a Protestant” in Tabletalk in 1994.[2]
I’m not sure that more recent advocates of studying Thomas have gone so far as that, but their writings often savor of celebration and not merely of that discerning use which I mentioned above. Samuel Parkison said Aquinas is “enjoying the blessed hope of the beatific vision,” which is hopefully correct, but hard to maintain with confidence given that Aquinas taught idolatry and what the New Testament says about idolaters (1 Cor. 5:11; 6:9-10; Gal. 5:19-21; Rev. 21:8). I’m confident that the Credo crowd would dispute much of what Thomas thought, but it is hard to escape the feeling that they have so much emphasized what they consider beneficent in Aquinas, and what they consider to be common belief between him and the Reformation, that they have unhelpfully exaggerated his usefulness, praised his person, and neglected or minimized his faults.
This marks a contrast with the Reformers, as near as I can tell. Some of the Reformers quote Aquinas approvingly, but their doing so is not abundant or unqualified, and much less does it suggest a praise of his person or a general commendation of his doctrine. The contemporary advocates of studying Thomas sometimes make it sound like the Reformers (and Puritans, et al) were Thomistic to the core and that their writings are brimming with use of his own. Granting that these are learned men worthy of a healthy respect and that I am a commoner, I must confess that I simply don’t see it.
Stefan Lindholm is more careful in his treatment and readily admits the limits of Zanchi’s agreement with Aquinas, but he still says that Zanchi “was well known for his scholastic style and his frequent use of Thomas.” He neglects to quote him doing so, however, and when I turn to Zanchi’s Absolute Doctrine of Predestination I find him citing Aquinas but twice and saying he was “a man of some genius, and much application: who, though in very many things a laborious trifler, was yet, on some subjects, a clear reasoner and judicious writer” (modernized slightly). That is hardly high praise. Elsewhere I have expressed similar findings regarding John Owen’s use and opinion of Aquinas, and I find similar things in Calvin, whose Institutes don’t brim with Aquinas references. David Sytsma – who is also reasonably balanced and responsible on the larger question of Reformers using Aquinas – admits as much in that same issue of Credo (“John Calvin did not often mention Aquinas”). Even granting that one could adhere to Thomas’ methods or concepts without quoting him abundantly, it is hard to reconcile Credo’s frequent enthusiasm on this point with much of what I find in the actual writings of our forerunners.
Of similar concern is that enthusiasm for Aquinas has led some such Protestants to keep company with members of Rome and to commend their works and offer them a platform. Members of the Dominican Order’s Thomistic Institute have appeared at Credo in a teaching capacity (here and here). Again, Rome’s practices have not changed, and we regard them as tyrannical and as leading people rather away from God than to him in truth. They are “idolatry and a gross subversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ,” as Parkison put it elsewhere at Credo. That being so, the question might be asked: then why cooperate with such people whom one believes are so disastrously wrong?
And to that we may ask more particularly several other questions. Has bad company ceased to ruin good morals (1 Cor. 15:33)? Are Rome’s corruptions no longer teachings of demons (1 Tim. 4:1-3) that make void the word of God (Matt. 15:6), and do our confessions no longer regard participation in oath-bound orders such as the Dominicans to be a snare (Westminster Confession 22.7; London Baptist Confession 23.5)? Is praying before an image of a man no longer superstition, and are such things as pilgrimages and celebrations and invocations of men no longer works of human wisdom (Col. 2:16-23) that too much exalt men (comp. Acts 10:26), “are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Col. 2:23), and deny the scriptural example of praying directly to God (Matt. 6:9; Jn. 15:16; 16:23)? Is it through Aquinas that we have access to the Father, or is it through Christ that we have access to him in the Spirit (Eph. 2:18)? Is it before his image that we are to pray at all times, or are we to do so in the Spirit (Eph. 6:18)? When we celebrate or follow any man are we no longer “being merely human” (1 Cor. 3:4; comp. v. 7)? And when we celebrate an idolater like Aquinas are we obeying the command “not to associate with such people” (1 Cor. 5:11)? Scripture is very plain on these points, but some otherwise learned and useful men have stumbled into witness-tarnishing inconsistency in this matter; and well might we fear for some of them, lest their zeal for learning might lead them away from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ alone (2 Cor. 11:3; comp. Eph. 4:14; Col. 2:8; 2 Tim. 3:7). “Pray for all people,” dear reader, not least for our academics, that they abide in the truth viz. all people and ideas (1 Tim. 2:1; Jas. 5:16).
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks (Simpsonville), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation. 

[1]   https://credomag.com/article/who-is-afraid-of-scholasticism/
[2]   Cited in footnote 14 here
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But the disagreement, itself part of a larger debate about catholicity, does highlight the problems with that doctrine as it is often presented. By catholicity I mean the attribute of the church by which it is not limited to any one nation, class, or era, but is present wherever and whenever there is true faith and the bonds of the Spirit. It is a spiritual unity diffused through space and time: wherever there is true Christ-embracing faith, there is the church. Catholicity is not visible or formal unity as such, but unity in the Spirit and in the truth that he has revealed in word, sacraments, fellowship, charity and works, etc.). 

Last summer Derrick Brite published an article at Reformation 21, “William Perkins on Keeping It Catholic,” that occasioned a skirmish concerning catholicity by bringing forth a response from a Reformed Church in America (RCA) minister writing pseudonymously with Calvin’s nom de plume ‘Charles D’Espeville.,’ which in turn brought forth the remonstrance of R. Scott Clark of Westminster Seminary California. Many of the particulars do not merit reconsideration. Brite’s original article is no longer available, while the RCA’s minister’s fit of high dudgeon, while understandable given his personal history with Rome and its historic tyranny over the souls of men, was not pristinely accurate in all its representations.[1]
But the disagreement, itself part of a larger debate about catholicity, does highlight the problems with that doctrine as it is often presented. By catholicity I mean the attribute of the church by which it is not limited to any one nation, class, or era, but is present wherever and whenever there is true faith and the bonds of the Spirit. It is a spiritual unity diffused through space and time: wherever there is true Christ-embracing faith, there is the church. Catholicity is not visible or formal unity as such, but unity in the Spirit and in the truth that he has revealed in word, sacraments, fellowship, charity and works, etc.).[2]
The problem is not with the concept as such, but with how it is discussed. One, catholicity wants a better scriptural defense. Many people appeal to the concept as correct without any attempt to demonstrate its scriptural basis. There are passages at hand to do so like 1 Corinthians 1:2 and 12:13; Ephesians 4:3-6; Acts 9:31; 10:34-35; Revelation 5:9; and 7:9 (amongst others), but they want elaboration, even in accomplished theologians who are otherwise long on exegesis. The Scripture index for Berkhof’s Systematic Theology is 23 pages long, and yet he fails to reference Scripture a single time when discussing catholicity. The Scripture index of Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics is 47 pages long, yet his consideration eschews detailed scriptural reflection at many points: in two pages of consideration of catholicity (“The Church is Catholic,” Vol. IV, 282-284) his only reference to Scripture is in an Augustine quote that appeals to Jude 19 (rather dubiously for our purposes viz. catholicity).[3] He elsewhere cites Scripture plentifully, but in a single clause and without elaboration (322).
Nor has this lack of exegesis been limited to previous eras and longer works. Brite’s original article did not reference Scripture except obliquely in conclusion with an appeal to Jeremiah 6:16, and appealed rather to Perkins’ historical example to plead the cause of catholicity. Clark appeals to 1 Kings 19:18 (and Romans 11:4) and elaborates upon the practical outworking of Acts 1:8, but the bulk of his useful article is concerned with the confessional and historical nature of catholicity. To be clear, we do confess the church’s catholicity (Westminster Confession 25.1-4), and we find support for it in history; Clark is right to appeal to such things in his helpful consideration of catholicity.
But if one’s position is that many contemporary evangelicals are effectively radical sectarians (‘biblicists’) with a benighted view of the church and her history, then appealing more to history, confessions, and the opinions of sundry medieval and ancient teachers than to Scripture is not a prudent approach in trying to convince said evangelicals of the validity and importance of catholicity. Nor can this be limited to dealing with traditional bastions of evangelical belief like independent churches, for as that RCA minister’s article demonstrated, disregarding catholicity is common even in professedly Reformed denominations. Given that many evangelicals are not only ignorant of catholicity but actually take offense at it, convincing them that the concept is a real attribute of the church is best approached by establishing its scriptural validity, not with appeals to things that many evangelicals do not recognize at all (confessions, teaching of early church figures), or about which even the professed adherents or those of a more Reformed bent often have a lukewarm and inconsistent devotion (ibid.).
So it is with historical appeals as well. The proponents of catholicity argue that the Protestant churches and their foremost leaders have always been cognizant of their own catholicity, as evidenced by their practice of appealing to councils, creeds, and the opinions of earlier thinkers in establishing the continuity and fidelity of their own doctrine. That historical argument seems correct, but is naively practiced in many cases; for it does not accomplish much when one’s target audience regards the church as having veered into apostasy from an early date. Saying ‘see, this is catholic because Tertullian and Aquinas believed it too’ doesn’t work when one’s audience either doesn’t know who such people are or thinks that they are apostates whose opinion ipso facto doesn’t matter. The defenders of catholicity therefore make a practical error when they argue its validity primarily on historical and confessional grounds without first demonstrating the scriptural fidelity of the things to which they appeal.
A second problem with catholicity is that its typical form seems unlikely to win the people of Rome on the opposite side, for she has a different definition of catholicity than we. She regards its essence as lying in communion with herself: “Particular Churches are fully catholic through their communion with one of them, the Church of Rome” (Roman Catechism 834). Indeed, catholicity is another of the many things that we need to recover from the corrupt notions of the church that Rome has propagated.[4] When we therefore appeal to catholicity to urge the legitimacy of our churches, they are apt to dismiss us (e.g., their catechism refers to us as “ecclesial communities” (1400), not churches).[5]
This is the weakness in something like Perkins’ A Reformed Catholic, to which Clark and Brite appealed. Saying that a Reformed Catholic is one “that holds the same necessary heads of religion with the Roman Church; yet so as he pares off and rejects all errors in doctrine whereby the said religion is corrupted”[6] seems unlikely to convince most members of Rome, and as a dual polemic/irenic approach it contains another inherent weakness which is the third problem with catholicity. Catholicity requires careful explanation in relation to Rome. In that same work Perkins says of Rome “we take it to be no Church of God.” He never speaks of Rome being catholic, and actually juxtaposes the Roman and Catholic churches.[7] How then can we speak of catholicity having any part here? For catholicity is a mark of the church, and yet here we are denying that Rome is a true church, which would appear to mean that any concurrence of belief between us is a matter of coincidence, not catholicity.
The answer, which is already latent in Perkins, is twofold. One, catholicity is a mark of both the visible and the invisible church. Though Rome be no true church, yet we suspect that there are many faithful in her midst, who by their faith in the truth are members of the invisible catholic church in spite of the visible communion of which they are a part. “For the popish Church and God’s Church are mingled like chaff and corn in one heap: and the Church of Rome may be said to be in the Church of God: and the church of God in the church of Rome; as we say the wheat is among the chaff, and the chaff in the wheat.” Second, catholicity is a mark not only of the church, but of that body of faith and practice to which she adheres (albeit with greater or lesser purity), hence in his subtitle Perkins argues that “the Roman religion” is “against the Catholic principles and grounds of the Catechism” (defined as The Apostles’ Creed, Ten Commandments, Lord’s Prayer, and Baptism and the Lord’s Supper).
Establishing catholicity of belief, however, presents an enormous difficulty. Rome can simply say that what qualifies as catholic is what she officially approves, as demonstrated by such formal approval, ubiquity, and antiquity. Many a contemporary evangelical can simply see if something is prescribed or forbidden in Scripture and reject or accept it accordingly. We must consider whether a thing not only has a long and wide pedigree, but whether it comports with Scripture’s teaching. The more traditional Protestant, that is, has a harder task than both, for he may not merely take the church’s word for it or use Scripture as an encyclopedia of belief, but must have a broad knowledge of history and scriptural doctrine so that he can determine if a popular, long-established belief or practice is correct.
It is just here that a further difficulty arises, for it soon becomes evident that there are things that have a long and wide pedigree that are clearly at odds with Scripture (e.g., images). What then are we to make of a mistaken thing that large swathes of professing believers and whole institutional churches have done for centuries? That version of an evangelical conception of history that imagines the church departed into darkness in the second century and largely remained there until the Reformation, when the primitive church was reconstituted, might not be correct simpliciter, but it has abundant reasons and appears, as Allen and Swain note in the beginning of their book Reformed Catholicity, in no less illustrious a theologian than B.B. Warfield.
This brings me to the final difficulty with many present conceptions of catholicity, which is that they do not seem to have a good explanation for apostasy in the church, and especially take no notice of the great apostasy (or rebellion, 2 Thess. 2:3) that many believe finds at least partial fulfillment in Rome’s corruptions. Indeed, some of our retrievers and promoters of catholicity get carried away in their enthusiasm and greatly exaggerate the beneficence of various historical figures. Credo calls Aquinas a “beam of orthodoxy” in its issue about him, apparently forgetting that he taught the damning sin (1 Cor. 6:9) of idolatry (Summa III, Q. 25, A.4). This present fondness for catholicity means, in other words, that we risk having an imbalanced understanding of the church and her history, one in which we so much emphasize continuity and similarity in belief that we forget the ancient faults from which God has graciously delivered us (Ps. 80:3, 7; Ecc. 7:10; Lam. 5:21).
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks (Simpsonville), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation. 

[1] For example, his claim that vatican means “diving-serpent” is contradicted by the Online Etymology Dictionary, and his claim about Rome “burning of hundreds of thousands of Christian martyrs” cannot be approved since, though Papal cruelty was often great, the precise number and means of death of people who died at the hands of members of that communion are uncertain, and since many victims would not be considered martyrs of the true faith.
[2] James Bannerman, The Church of Christ, pp. 57-60 (pdf version). Available here: https://www.monergism.com/church-christ-ebook
[3] Arguably this arises because of the organization of Bavinck’s discussion of the church. The section immediately prior (“The Church is One”), beginning on p. 279, does contain extensive scriptural reflection and ends with mentions of catholicity that are then elaborated in “The Church is Catholic.”
[4] Alas, her efforts to lay sole claim to catholicity have caused many Protestants to misunderstand its true nature and to take her definition (if unknowingly), of which the response to Brite’s article was an example. My local PCA church uses a modified form of the Apostles’ Creed that refers to the “holy Christian church.”
[5] But not necessarily in all cases. Matthew Levering, a Romanist professor, has praised Matthew Barrett’s The Reformation as Renewal. The difference between what the Roman communion officially teaches and what her people actually do and believe is a common difficulty in comprehending Rome.
[6] All quotes from Perkins have been modernized somewhat.
[7] In a single case he speaks of “Roman Catholics,” but elsewhere speaks of the “Roman” and “Catholic” churches as separate, most notably by saying that “the Roman Church, though falsely, takes unto itself the title of the true Catholic church” (all spelling modernized).
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But lay aside the practical consequences of ordaining women pastors, as well as its obvious violation of the clear commands of Scripture….This notion that it is unfair to deny office on account of things outside the conscious control of those that want it if they have the same abilities or moral character that others who attain to it possess. It would be easy to imagine that God is unjust on this point and to ask: why, when all believers participate in the Spirit and receive understanding and spiritual gifts from him, has he not seen fit to enable all people, men and women, to be fit for all the duties and offices of the church? Because God is sovereign, and his will is independent of ours.

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Rom. 12:2)
Our culture cannot abide the notion that any position should be denied someone who wants it on account of any trait that is outside that person’s conscious will. This is often presented as a just desire for equality between persons, but what it actually represents is the elevation of the individual will and its imagined rights above the will of the corporate bodies of which the individual is a part. The modern spirit of absolute individual autonomy says that the individual has rights where the corporate does not, and that in any conflict it is the corporate that must yield to the claims of the individual. Indeed, it is felt that the corporate body only exists to empower, affirm, and celebrate the individual in his or her attempt at self-realization.
To present an example in the civil realm, there are many who act as though the military does not exist to defend the nation, but to provide an environment in which people can climb the ranks and acquire as much remuneration, prestige, and power as they are able. It is thought unfair to prohibit women serving in the combat arms, for example, for that would limit their opportunities for advancement, as if their career ambitions are the important thing in such cases, rather than the actual needs of infantry or artillery battalions.[1]
That same spirit shows itself in the church. It is felt unfair that women should be denied the ruling and teaching offices in the church if they desire them and show themselves as having excellent moral character and much talent in teaching, administration, etc. Great numbers of people, whose sincerity and good intentions I do not for the most part doubt, are therefore agitating for change on this point, and many have gone ahead and elevated women to positions of leadership.
It is an endeavor which is somewhat understandable, for many of the practical considerations of ministry seem to commend it. We see how badly great multitudes need mercy and the good news of eternal life; and we see how many zealous and compassionate women there are among us; how much more opportunity they have to work than many men; how many of them have many useful talents that can be deployed to this end; how many of the people who need help or who have open ears to spiritual concerns are themselves women; and how many men seem apathetic about the work of ministry, and we think that practical concerns and simple fairness commend extending office to those who are eager to carry out its labors.
And yet to do such a thing encounters insuperable difficulties. Paul’s apostolic instruction concerning such matters is, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man” (1 Tim. 2:12). Elsewhere he says, even more restrictively, that “women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says” (1 Cor. 14:34). Discussing this in a 1919 article, “Paul on Women Speaking in Church,” B.B. Warfield says that “it would be impossible for the apostle to speak more directly or more emphatically than he has d[one] here. He requires women to be silent at the church-[meeti]ngs.”[2] Nor can this be regarded as being non-binding or only the apostle’s opinion, for he explicitly claims divine inspiration for it, saying promptly thereafter in 1 Cor. 14:37 that “if anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord.” (And of course, being part of the canon, 1 Corinthians participates in the attribute of divine inspiration with all the other books of the Old and New Testaments, as explicitly declared by 2 Tim. 3:16’s assertion that “all Scripture is breathed out by God.”)
There are practical concerns as well, such as that women seem to not desire office as much as is thought. The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) greatly wishes to achieve a version of equality which includes parity in the numbers of men and women leaders. But their report upon the matter, Gender and Leadership in the PC(USA), says women are underrepresented, accounting for 58% of members and only 38% of active teaching elders in 2016, even after generations of ordaining women. Perhaps the familiar refrain that women are more spiritual than men is false, then, or at least does not have anything to do with their desire to hold church office.
(And as an aside, the picture of the PCUSA’s efforts at gender equality that report portrays does not suggest an equitable or pleasant outcome, but rather a situation characterized by widespread, continuing discord. Either extending office to women has not meant them also achieving the same prestige as their male counterparts, or else such as has been achieved is deemed insufficient. Neither suggests the experiment has been particularly successful: either official equality did not mean actual/practical equality, or else equality really has been achieved and its beneficiaries do not like its true nature in comparison to what their ideal visions imagine it should be like.)
Then there is the practical concern that the churches that have ordained women as pastors, far from increasing their appeal, have been struggling with severe membership losses. That which was supposed to increase ministerial effectiveness has not done so, at least for many of the major denominations that have pursued it. The PCUSA’s constituent predecessors had about 4.25 million members in 1965. It is now down to 1.14 million, and loses about 110 churches and 50,000 members every year. The national population has meanwhile increased from about 195 million to an estimated 334 million. This represents the PCUSA’s percentage of the population dropping by about 85%. That is not winning the culture, and represents demographic difficulties reminiscent of the Jewish nation during its judgments (Jer. 4:26).
But lay aside the practical consequences of ordaining women pastors, as well as its obvious violation of the clear commands of Scripture, for these objections have often been pointed out before. Consider again the idea upon which it precedes, this notion that it is unfair to deny office on account of things outside the conscious control of those that want it if they have the same abilities or moral character that others who attain to it possess. It would be easy to imagine that God is unjust on this point and to ask: why, when all believers participate in the Spirit and receive understanding and spiritual gifts from him, has he not seen fit to enable all people, men and women, to be fit for all the duties and offices of the church?
Because God is sovereign, and his will is independent of ours. He does not rule to do our bidding (Lk. 17:7-10) or to bring about perfect equality of authority (1 Pet. 5:5) and opportunity (Matt. 19:30) between people, nor to make it so our faith is easily palatable to unbelievers who ascribe to the phantasm of absolute individual autonomy (1 Cor. 1:23; 1 Pet. 2:8). The church belongs to him, not us, as do its offices and gifts: he may give them in whatever amount he wishes to whomever he wishes, and he may deny or withdraw them as he sees fit. They are his to do with them as he pleases.
We cannot say this is unfair because 1) we are creatures, and creatures have no right to criticize or question their creator (Job. 40:2; Isa. 45:9-11; Rom. 9:20); and 2) none of us deserve anything from God except rejection and punishment (Rom. 3:9-20). All we have is a gift (Jn. 3:27; 1 Cor. 4:7; Jas. 1:17), and gifts are matters of grace, not justice (Matt. 20:1-16; Rom. 12:6). For his own reasons God has given office and gifts to some (Eph. 4:7-14) which he has not given to most others (inc. the present author). That is his prerogative, and you can either accept it or rebel against it. You cannot deny God’s rights to freely do with his own whatever he wills, for that is to deny his independence and sovereignty as creator and governor of the world.
And in that is seen the essential evil of rebelling against him by disobeying his commands against women pastors. It is an act of gross impiety that denies essential attributes of his character and seeks to supplant his will with that of mere sinful humans. Now God says in his word that “rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry” (1 Sam. 15:23). He forbade such offenses absolutely in the Law, prescribing the death penalty as punishment (Lev. 20:27; Deut. 13:1-18), and in the New Testament says that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of heaven (1 Cor. 6:9; Gal. 5:19-21) but will perish in the lake of fire (Rev. 21:8). Let the gravity of that sink in: those that ordain women are engaged in a sin that God regards as the moral equivalent of idolatry and witchcraft (as some translations have 1 Sam. 15:23’s “divination”). If something is the equivalent of such heinous sins we should not toy with or study it, but rather reject it outright without delay.
That may yet be a snare for many, for I fear that some are content to oppose it, but with a manner and conception that is at least partly of their own choosing and not with the full force of Scripture’s denunciations of such open rebellion. There is a brand of conservative thought that desires to oppose what it regards as error, but in a respectable – dare I say, winsome – way that it (vainly) hopes will not be open to the accusation of fanaticism or fundamentalism. But in such matters we ought to oppose wrong in God’s way, not our own, which means describing sins as they truly are, not in a purposefully restrained manner that fears lest it seem too harsh or offensive. The future will reveal whether the opponents of this error oppose it as though it is a matter of life and death, or whether like Joash they fight with less zeal than is required and ultimately fail (2 Kgs. 13:14-19).
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks (Simpsonville), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation, available through Amazon.

[1]      When all specialties were opened to women in 2015 it was on condition that they be able to meet the standards required for each, which suggests that my perspective here is false, as doing so expanded the available candidates to fill combat positions. I.e., it put the military’s needs first and without compromise. However, there are no shortage of men who could fill those positions – the vast bulk of the military serve in administrative and support capacities – and many of the people who pressured the military to make such changes seem to have been motivated less by a desire to expand our combat forces than by concerns about perceived fairness to women.
[2]      The manuscript has a tear where the text in brackets is located above, and the words “done” and “meeting” have been inferred as the proper ones from the context.
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