The intellectual intransigence of southerners towards Edwards, especially southern Presbyterians with high views on the eucharist and those opposed to the New Divinity, should not be discounted in an attempt to create a tradition wherein Edwards is primary progenitor of Calvinist thought in North America.

In the 1840s and 1850s the debates over the eucharist between Charles Hodge and John Williamson Nevin raged in the pages of The Princeton Review and The Mercersburg Review. The editors and writers of The Southern Presbyterian Review weighed in on the subject as well. Brooks Holifield noted in his Gentleman Theologians that none of the major southern Presbyterian intellectuals of the era–Robert J. Breckenridge of Danville Seminary, James Henley Thornwell of the South Carolina College, and John B. Adger of Charleston–shared “Hodge’s reservations” concerning Calvin’s and Nevin’s relatively high view of the eucharist.  Southerners also took aim at another scholar controversial in the era, Jonathan Edwards. Beginning in the mid-Eighteenth Century Princeton Seminary exported Edwardean theology throughout both Old School and New School churches in the North but a significant strand of southern Calvinism remained aloof from the New Englander.
John Bailey Adger’s defense of Nevin and the historic Calvinist doctrine of the eucharist led him to evaluate the North American Calvinism in the context of the broader historic Calvinist tradition. Adger’s public opposition elicited annoyance from older and specifically northern-trained ministers in the South who long relied on Edwards’ theology to “prove that that the will was powerless to choose the good without the special influence of divine grace but that the reprobate were yet responsible for their decision to capitulate to that sinfulness.” New England educated John Bocock boasted in The Southern Presbyterian Review that “no man would undertake to refute Edwards if he understood him,” a claim which prompted a prominent southern Methodist to state derisively that Edwards had left nothing behind but a legacy of “difficulties and confusion.”  [1]
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In the end, the pastoral thing to do is to point people to Christ and to call them to faithfulness in him. If we think Jesus has put things in place that matter for the local church, being pastoral must mean faithfully standing on those things Christ has called the church to stand on. It cannot be pastoral to encourage people to set aside Jesus’ commands and to say they simply do not matter. The pastoral implications of doing that, I would argue, are far worse.

I am often unsure what to make of people, faced with teaching from scripture, want to encourage us to consider the “pastoral implications”. Whether it be facing the biblical teaching on marriage and its implications for same-sex attracted people, the doctrine of complementarianism and its implications for gender roles or that vexed issue of the ordinances and who it is appropriate to welcome into the church and what is demanded on those who would seek to be welcomed. All of these are examples of teaching on which the Bible has something specific to say but some are keen to encourage us to be aware, and even to moderate what we perceive to be the biblical position, based on “pastoral concerns”.
My major concern with the call to be mindful of the pastoral implications is that it so often sounds to me like a call to set aside what the bible clearly teaches on a matter so we can make people who will not abide by it feel more comfortable. Of course, I would love it if a church altered its position on any number of things to align with my views and welcome me. But I, ironically, wouldn’t want to join the church that did that in the face of what it actually believed on the matter at hand. A church willing to change its position in the face of what it thinks the Bible is teaching in order to welcome those who see no reason to abide by such things is not, in my view, being faithful. It is placing the desire to welcome over and above what the Lord explicitly commands and sets aside the very grounds by which Jesus says we ought not to welcome.
Of course, everyone agrees with this when it concerns matters they reckon to be sinful. You don’t get many genuine evangelicals arguing that our churches should become affirming despite teaching clearly about Jesus’ views on marriage and same-sex relationships. Their uniform understanding of what is and is not sin in these circumstances mean most are quite ready to say that we ought not to welcome those who would ride roughshod over the commands of Christ in this area.
The issue tends to come when one party considers a matter one of sin and faithfulness while the other does not. The argument in such circumstances boils down to I do not find this sinful so you should welcome me. There seems to be little recognition that I might find it sinful so cannot welcome you if you refuse to acknowledge it is so.
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Protestant evangelicals, Catholics, Orthodox, and virtually every other church outside of a subset of shrinking churches in the West believe marriage touches foundational anthropological doctrines and will never be simply something we can “agree to disagree” on. Still, the press surrounding the progressive position can make orthodox Christians feel defeated, deflated, and doomed—as if they’re in the minority now as far as churchgoing Christians are concerned, as if there’s no stopping the runaway revisionist train. This narrative is powerful but false.

Earlier this year, the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) surprised nearly everyone, not just outsiders. The denomination, which many believed had been drifting away from the authority of Scripture, corrected course and made clear the church’s conviction on sexual ethics.
The CRC’s clarification went even further than some observers expected. The group voted, as a clear majority, to make its position nonnegotiable. The traditional view of marriage and sexuality is the standard of the church’s teaching. There’s to be no deviation, which goes for institutions like Calvin University, even if some professors there seem to have moved toward the revisionist view of sexuality.
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The CRC is not the only denomination to tighten its doctrinal standards around sexuality rather than loosen them.

The Global Methodist Church is in the process of breaking up with the United Methodist Church and will provide a worldwide home for Wesleyans who wish to maintain a faithful witness to God’s Word in the days ahead.
The Anglican Communion is mired in conflict between a fast-shrinking, largely white, and increasingly elderly contingent that advocates for same-sex marriage and a fast-growing, largely black and brown, and increasingly young community of believers located in the global South that shuns the revisionist agenda. Several years ago, the Communion censured the American wing. Meanwhile, orthodox Anglicans around the world are finding new and creative ways of connection and partnership.
The Presbyterian Church of America recently released a lengthy, brilliantly crafted document that reaffirms a biblical view of sex and marriage, even going so far as to provide avenues for evangelists and apologists to make a case for this position in an era shaped by the sexual revolution.

It’s not just denominations. Organizations have been tightening up their standards and clarifying their adherence to the biblical position.

The CCCU (Council for Christian Colleges and Universities) added a statement about Christian distinctives and advocacy, which clarified their adherence to a biblical sexual ethic as a “core Christian commitment.”
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship conducted a four-year process of study and then reiterated the organization’s stance through a nine-part curriculum for all employees.
Fuller Seminary, Wheaton College, and Christianity Today have also, in recent years, reaffirmed their commitment to the historic view of marriage.

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