Why is it comforting that we have a new identity in Jesus Christ? The phrasing of the question shows that Gordon is making an appeal against the expressive individuals that we all are. We almost impulsively reject the notion that anything outside of ourselves could define our identity and that we would find that comforting. Yet the new identity that Jesus Christ imparted upon all whom He has redeemed is still the only true and lasting comfort, both in this life and even in death. The answer contains four sentences. Because the first sentence must be understood in light of the second, it may be more helpful if the answer read: “Because God has redeemed my life with the precious blood of his Son and has also delivered me from the lie of Satan in the Garden, I am being remade into the image of Christ, to have a true identity–in body and soul, throughout the whole course of my life, to enjoy God and glorify him forever.”

In the preface, Gordon says that he based this catechism upon the Heidelberg Catechism, which was approved in its final version in 1563 and was written by Zacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus (who were both in their twenties when they first wrote). While the Westminster Shorter Catechism is unrivaled for instructing in sound doctrine, the Heidelberg remains in use nearly five hundred years later largely because of its devotional warmth. We see this distinction in the opening questions of both catechisms. The Westminster begins with establishing the end or purpose (telos) for all of mankind. In other words, it begins with what we were created to do. The Heidelberg, however, begins with the only source of real and lasting comfort that can be found in this broken and sin-stained world. As we will see, Gordon’s use of the Heidelberg is most evident in these first two questions.
Question 1
Whenever I first read the questions to my wife, I don’t think I even finished reading the answer to this first question before she asked me: “Why does a catechism on sexuality begin with identity?”
And that is a great and necessary question to answer right from the start. I answered Tiff that she likely thinks of identity in the much the same way that anyone would have throughout most of human history. My identity is who I am, and that is likely to be expressed through many external factors. I am the son or daughter of X and Y. I am the husband or wife of Z. I am the father or mother of my children. I am a citizen of… And the list goes on.
For the ancients, understanding one’s identity was crucial for being able to live out the virtue of piety, which meant doing one’s duty to whomever that duty was owed. For the Romans, Aeneas was the standard of such piety. Throughout the Aeneid, he repeatedly sets aside his own interests and happiness in order to do his duty to the gods, his country, and his family. The most famous example comes in book 2, where Aeneas escapes the burning of Troy while leading his son by the hand and carrying his elderly father on his back. That was an act of masculine piety, guiding the next generation while also shouldering the weight of the previous generation. Indeed, the Roman government saw the catechizing potential of that image, so they imprinted it upon their coins. Again, to live piously required understanding one’s identity or place within society so that you could properly fulfill your duty.
Yet you may have noticed that that notion is rather foreign to us today. Samuel James writes:
Over the past several years, Christian theologians and others have described the emerging generation of Western adults as belonging to the spirit of “expressive individualism.” The scholar Robert Bellah defines expressive individualism this way: “Expressive individualism holds that each person has a unique core of feeling and intuition that should unfold or be expressed in individuality is to be realized.” In other words, what most people in the modern, secular world believe is that the key to their happiness, fulfillment, and quest for meaning in life is to arrange things so that their inner desires and ambitions can be totally achieved. If these desires and ambitions align with those of the community or the religion, great! But if not, then it’s the community or the religion that must be changed or done away with. Life’s center of gravity, according to expressive individualism, is the self.
pp. 5-6
For our discussion, this means that most Americans today do not approach identity as a statement (this is who I am) but as a question: Who am I? This is crucial to understand because as Carl Trueman notes:
at the heart of the issues we face today is the phenomenon of expressive individualism. This is the modern creed whose mantras and liturgies set the terms for how we think about ourselves and our world today. It is the notion that every person is constituted by a set of inward feelings, desires, and emotions. The real “me” is that person who dwells inside my body, and thus I am most truly myself when I am able to act outwardly in accordance with those inner feelings. In an extreme form we see this in the transgender phenomenon, where physical, biological sex and psychological gender identity can stand in opposition to each other. I can therefore really be a woman if I think I am one, even if my body is that of a male. But expressive individualism is not restricted to questions of gender. When people identify themselves by their desires–sexual or otherwise–they are expressive individuals. And to some extent that implicates us all. The modern self is the expressive individual self.
That is no exaggeration on Trueman’s end. We are all, in some sense, expressive individualists. James opens up his book with David Foster Wallace’s fable about the fish. An older fish swims past two young fish and asks them how’s the water. As the older fish swims away, the young fish look at each other and ask, “What’s water?” The point of the fable is that it is incredibly difficult to notice what is all around us. Expressive individualism is the water that the modern West swims in, and failing to notice it does nothing to change the fact that we are still swimming in it. Even simple notions like being a cat or dog person or a morning or evening person give away that we are all expressive individualists to some degree, since the very notion that I can be defined by what I like or dislike is fundamentally modern.
Practically, this means we and virtually any person that we know has an ingrained propensity to look within ourselves for happiness, fulfillment, and meaning. And it makes sense right? Shouldn’t we know best how to best satisfy and comfort ourselves? Despite the reality that we live in most comfortable, wealthiest, and safest time in human history, the pandemic levels of anxiety and depression screams that something isn’t quite right. Indeed, for the first time in human history young people are more likely to kill themselves than be killed by almost anything else. The world has never been better, but in some ways, we have never been more broken.
The Heidelberg began by speaking comfort into a world filled with pain and death that were ever-present and inescapable, asking:
What is your only comfort in life and death?
Read More
Related Posts:

What Covenant Presbytery has wisely done is encourage parties to reconcile. This is always the goal anyhow: to agree in the Lord, to dwell in unity and peace. The resolution adopted by Covenant Presbytery exhorts everyone to do so while acknowledging that “mistakes were made,” which provides an opportunity for repentance and reconciliation. The decision of the SJC identifies some of the specific errors that were made by Church Courts in this case, which would be a good starting point for reconciliation.

The case of the Jonesboro 7 was a travesty of ecclesiastical justice. So much so the Standing Judicial Commission of the PCA even noted the process was “abused.” I’ve written about the Jonesboro 7 somewhat extensively here and on PCA Polity.1 Others have written about it too (here and here).
As such, I planned to write no more on this subject. I thought further analysis would only distract from the good work of a thriving church plant in Jonesboro.
But there has been a new development in reference to the case, something that – according to one former General Assembly Moderator – is unprecedented.
At its February 2024 meeting, Covenant Presbytery considered an overture from the Session of Christ Covenant PCA in Hernando, Missippi. The Overture urged reconciliation between the men known as the Jonesboro 7 and Covenant Presbytery, which sustained their wrongful conviction. The Moderator of Covenant Presbytery is RE David Caldwell, but he – as a member of the previous Temporary Session – has relinquished the chair on all Jonesboro 7 matters (according to a confidential source within Covenant Presbytery).
After some debate, the overture was referred to the Presbytery’s Church Care Committee (CCC). On May 21, 2024 Covenant Presbytery – meeting at the Independent Presbyterian Church of Memphis – overwhelmingly adopted seven recommendations from the CCC.
You can find all seven recommendations here. I’m going to focus on four things Covenant Presbytery did in adopting these recommendations.
Recognize
The Presbytery unequivocally and without qualification recognized that “mistakes were made” in the judicial case. But the Presbytery went further and apologized and expressed regret specifically for not following “the process laid out in BCO 32-5.”
This is nothing short of remarkable. And it is what the gospel enables people to do; to apologize when they have done wrong. Here a whole church court has recognized its failure to uphold proper procedure and not only apologized, but expressed its regret.
As part of this recognition, the Presbytery urged its members to “read all SJC decisions, especially those that pertain to cases in which our Presbytery or our members were involved.” The SJC decision and concurring opinion clearly identify where there were failures of procedure by the Presbytery and Session in this case.
Covenant Presbytery is to be commended for not seeking to conceal its past oversights and mistakes, but to learn from them for the future and to direct the people to the SJC Report where those oversights and mistakes were catalogued.
Remind
The Presbytery honed in on the specific issue that was such a grievous oversight by the Temporary Session (largely consisting of elders from IPC Memphis, the host church for the May 21, 2024 Presbytery meeting): the lack of specificity in the indictment.
The men were told they violated the Fifth and Ninth Commandments in the indictment. The indictment quoted from the PCA Constitution regarding those Commandments, but there were no specifics regarding when, where, and how the Law of God was (allegedly) breached by their conduct.
This left the Jonesboro 7 wholly unable to prepare a defense, since they weren’t told how they sinned only that they did. In fact when the Jonesboro 7 pleaded with their Session to tell them what they were accused of, TE Jeff Wreyford – their pastor at the time – wrote them: “it seems disingenuous for you to continue to insist that you do not know what you are being charged with.”2
This curious interpretation of what an indictment requires (or doesn’t require) was embraced by Covenant Presbytery when she denied the appeal of the Jonesboro 7.
The Presbytery Representatives, including a nationally-renowned lawyer from Arkansas, defended the defective indictments even before the SJC.
Read More
Related Posts:

Of course, no earthly father can represent God perfectly. We mess up, and when we do, we must ask forgiveness from God and from our children. It is also important to note that God promises to be a father for the fatherless. If your dad failed you, know that there’s a Father who will never forsake you, Who redeems brokenness in people and families and entire cultures, and Who rewrites stories despite statistics. You really can trust Him.  

Dads are crucial. We’ve known this for a long time. For example, former president Barack Obama, despite advancing many policies that undermined the family, remained an outspoken voice on the importance of loving, involved fathers. According to all the evidence, he was partly correct. Kids need their fathers, but do best when their fathers are married to their mothers.  
Earlier this month in The Wall Street Journal, Jennifer Breheny Wallace surveyed the overwhelming and decades-long scientific consensus that fathers and fatherly love are irreplaceable in the lives of children. For example, a 2021 study from the Journal of Family Psychology found that warm and caring dads predict better mental health outcomes for children. Both boys and girls with such fathers experience “fewer weight concerns, higher self-esteem and fewer depression symptoms.”  
The connection between physically present, emotionally available fathers and mentally healthy kids is so strong that researchers have termed it the “good father effect.” A recent review published in the journal Children surveyed nearly four dozen studies on the father-child relationship. In Wallace’s words, these studies conclude that, 
Fathers who were involved in caregiving and play, and who reacted with warmth and greater sensitivity to a child who expressed emotions, were significantly more likely to have children with better emotional balance from infancy to adolescence. 
Such emotional stability in turn predicted “higher levels of social competence, peer relationships, academic achievement, and resilience” among kids. 
If it is indeed true, as all the evidence shows, that a dad’s love has such incredible power to set children on a healthy trajectory, why are our laws, our culture, and so many of the movements that shape both, so intent on denying the need for fathers?
Read More
Related Posts: