John "Rabbi" Duncan was a 19th-century Scottish pastor and theologian well-known for his aphorisms, many of which remain popular today. A few days ago, Guy Davies, a pastor in the south of England, posted this one on his blog:

I'm first a Christian, next a catholic, then a Calvinist, fourth a paedobaptist, and fifth a Presbyterian. I cannot reverse this order.

While Guy would substitute "Baptist" and "Independent" in the last two slots, his intention in posting the quote was to reflect the importance of recognizing ourselves as belonging to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. Duncan considers the catholicity of the Church second only in importance to being a Christian, assigning that identification a much more prominent place than many evangelicals today do.

What interested me most about this was the ordering in which Duncan labeled himself. It is always tricky to affix labels to yourself, and I do not usually go beyond calling myself a Christian first, and then Reformed (although I do label myself more specifically as a Niceno-Constantinopolitan Neocalvinist on my Facebook profile). What Duncan is implying is that there is right way to order the labels you use to identify yourself.

In some ways, this reflects something Richard Pratt used to teach here at Reformed Theological Seminary. To help people think through the ordering of their beliefs he used a three-dimensional model of a cone, which he called the Cone of Certainty (click image at left to enlarge). If you looked at the cone from the top, the narrow point in the center would be where the central tenants of Christianity are located, those beliefs which are non-negotiable and clearly revealed in Scripture. The second layer contains what Pratt calls middle beliefs, those which we find to be important and which often serve as the distinguishing marks between our different denominations or camps. The peripheral beliefs represent those which, for the most part, do not affect our orthodoxy and which believers in the same camps can hold differing views on.

Looking at the side profile of the cone teaches us something else. The top is a very narrow point indicating that there is essentially no room for negotiation. Failure to confess these beliefs results in heterodoxy. These beliefs require a great deal of harmony. The middle part of the cone is wider indicating that there is some room for different interpretation such that orthodoxy is not necessarily compromised, although believers may wish to affiliate themselves on this level with like-minded groups. Finally, the widest part of the cone is at the base and at the beliefs we hold at this level do not require complete harmony. These may be the so-called "gray" areas.

Obviously, given the shape of the cone, it cannot stand on its point. It will fall over. When we take peripheral beliefs and elevate them to the status of central, non-negotiable beliefs, we create instability. Additionally, this serves to foster disunity in the Church. And of course, those who diminish central beliefs and make them peripheral cease to be the Church altogether.

I think Duncan gets this. He recognizes that our bonds as brothers and sisters in the Lord come from sharing those beliefs at the top of the cone (if he were to use the diagram). If we make the bond of Christian fellowship contingent upon the affirmation of beliefs that occupy a place much farther down the list, we fail to uphold the unity to which Jesus called us. Duncan recognized that the catholicity of the Church, while requiring belief in such essentials as stated in the Nicene Creed, was above more specific theological distinctions like Calvinism. Further, while he found it important to identify himself as a paedobaptist, he recognized that there were Calvinists who were not but were nonetheless brothers and sisters in Christ. Similarly, there were Calvinist paedobaptists who were not Presbyterians with whom he could unite in fellowship.

So there is a progression of widening distinction in Duncan's labeling that reflects Pratt's cone diagram. Each label, while important to Duncan, is of less importance as it pertains to the unity of the Church. His first two labels could be equated with the top of Pratt's cone, the next two (or maybe three) the middle beliefs. He emphasizes this point by stating that his order cannot be reversed.

As it is right now, I would label myself very similar to Duncan. The only thing I would change is substituting "Reformed" for Calvinist, since I know Calvin didn't want his followers being known as Calvinists. And while I'm a Presbyterian at this point, if I found myself in a place where there were no Presbyterian churches I could be comfortable in churches which use different structures so long as they are still theologically Reformed.

How would you label yourself?

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Over the past few weeks I have been leading an adult Sunday School class on worship, which has turned out to be quite an adventure. Of course, since worship is at the very core of who we are as humans (WSC 1), it follows that people should be so inclined to want to talk about it.

This past Sunday, our discussion turned to Reformed and Presbyterian worship. Because the church is a member of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), it was important to me that we talk about worship in our own tradition. Quite a number of the people in our church do not come from that background, and so I thought it especially important that they spend some time learning about how worship (specifically public or corporate worship, in this instance) is understood in the Reformed tradition.

Back in April, that topic came up on this blog and generated more comments and interaction that I have ever had in five years of blogging. The discussion of Reformed worship centers on what is called the Regulative Principle of Worship (RPW), which basically says that in regards to public worship, whatever is not commanded in Scripture is forbidden. Essentially, the point is that only the sovereign God can determine how He is to be worshiped, and He has clearly revealed to us in His Word how we are to do that. In the comments to the post in April, I indicated that I had difficulties with this principle, but I must admit I spoke a little hastily. I have difficulty with some interpretations of the principle, not the general principle in and of itself.

Needless to say, this functioned as the bone of contention Sunday morning, for a number of reasons. For one, all of us are products of Western culture, a culture which dislikes both authority and rules and wants to be able to set its own terms for everything, including for what worship should look like. To many, the RPW seems to be just that—a bunch of rules and restrictions that hinder our ability to worship and allow the Holy Spirit to move and work among us.

Second, people approach worship with entirely subjective ideas of the true, good, and beautiful. Many come to the discussion with the presumption that the things they think constitute worship are valid on the grounds of their subjective reasoning alone. If they feel that a certain element evokes a powerful response in them, then it must be appropriate. But the sheer audacity of this is immediately clear, and the question again surfaces: who are we to tell God—the One by whom all standards of truth, goodness, and beauty are measured—what is appropriate for worship? Can we seriously believe that our conceptions of these things are sufficiently equal to the One who created them?

Third, almost all recognition of the authority of tradition has been done away with in evangelical churches. In part, this can be attributed to a reaction to the descent into traditionalism by some bodies. More to the point, however, this springs from the same "me- and-my-Bible" individualism and relativism wherein we choose to locate authority today. What needs to be recovered is the acknowledgment that the individual is part of something much bigger than himself. I emphasized Sunday morning that we as a Presbyterian church are heirs to a very rich tradition, one to which we owe a great deal. A specific understanding of worship is one of the things that comes out of this tradition.

It would be a great mistake to not honor the tremendous diligence and devotion with which our Reformed forebears studied the Bible in order to pass down to us the sum of what Scripture teaches for the life of the believer and the Church (in the Westminster Standards and the Three Forms of Unity). Appealing to the confessional documents, though, will usually prompt the reaction that their teaching, on worship in this instance, is just a product of historical context or circumstance. Granted, a healthy sense of the authority of tradition carries with it an implicit understanding that we do not hold to these teachings blindly. But a far bigger danger is to run headlong into an understanding of worship premised on the authority of subjectivity. The fact remains that theology must be done in community, and the authority of the church should always be held above that of the individual.

Abraham Kuyper, in his Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology: Its Principles, writes about the authority of the Church's traditions and confessions, and says that every theologian must reckon with the things taught by the history of the church, and “must take the dogmas of his church as his guide, and that he shall not diverge from them until he is compelled to do this by the Word of God” (577). We must begin, Kuyper says, with the assumption that the Church is right. For this reason the theologian should not view the confession as mere opinion over against his, but should recognize that the confession of the Church does not just presume to be true, it carries objective authority by virtue of the guidance of the Spirit (591).

Now, this creates a problem for those who have joined a local church who are not of Presbyterian or Reformed persuasion. In our church, we have a number of these. Membership in the PCA does not require subscription to the Westminster Standards, and so members do not need to adhere to the RPW in this case. However—and this is a point that is seldom emphasized—in becoming members of the church people are required to submit to the authority of the local church and to recognize that the church is constitutionally-bound, by virtue of its membership in the denomination, to uphold the teachings and theology of the denomination. What does this mean for the member in regards to this issue? In essence it means that if your theology of worship does not conform to that of the PCA, you are not allowed to subvert the authority of the church by raising a dissenting voice. Naturally, in this culture and in modern evangelicalism, this does not sit well.

While there are rules governing worship in the PCA because of its adherence to the RPW, a fair amount of liberty in working out the details of the principle is still granted. The Book of Church Order 47-6, says,

The Lord Jesus Christ has prescribed no fixed forms for public worship but, in the interest of life and power in worship, has given His Church a large measure of liberty in this matter. It may not be forgotten, however, that there is true liberty only where the rules of God’s Word are observed and the Spirit of the Lord is, that all things must be done decently and in order, and that God’s people should serve Him with reverence and in the beauty of holiness. From its beginning to its end a service of public worship should be characterized by that simplicity which is an evidence of sincerity and by that beauty and dignity which are a manifestation of holiness.

In working through this issue, I came across a post Tim Challies wrote in November of 2006, in which he pointed out the important distinction between the elements of worship and the circumstances of worship. The elements are the non-negotiables dictated by Scripture, while the circumstances can be equated with the forms mentioned in the portion of the BCO cited above. In the PCA that means, for example, that while singing is a required element of worship, the circumstance or form of that element (such as singing exclusively Psalms or incorporating contemporary music) is a matter of liberty to be decided by the local congregation.

As good as that sounds, in some sense I think it creates further problems. This is particularly the case when you begin to discuss aspects of worship in the Old Testament, for two reasons. One, it raises the question of what parts of worship belong to the dictates of the ceremonial law. But second, it raises a question of the nature of the ceremonial law itself—if the ceremonial law is abrogated today, does this necessarily entail that all its teaching on worship falls under the rubric of that which is forbidden in the RPW? Without a doubt we would wholeheartedly affirm that certain parts of it are, such as the sacrificial elements. But what about the music the Israelites employed in worship? What about David's dancing before the Lord (2 Sam. 6:14)?

I am going to leave that aside for now. To round this discussion off, I want to point out that while the RPW has often been perceived as legalistic and restrictive, there is a sense in which it is actually freeing. Just as we are most free when we submit our hearts to God and seek to live according to His will and rule, so we are most free in our worship when we submit to His rule for worship. The BCO is exactly right on that point: "There is true liberty only where the rules of God’s Word are observed and the Spirit of the Lord is."

Worship is not about us; it never is. It is all about Him. If we come to understand that and begin to seek only His will for worship, recognizing that only in doing His will do we truly glorify Him, then we will begin to faithfully worship our God. Many people talk about wanting to feel the presence and movement of the Holy Spirit in worship, but the only guarantee of that is to worship in spirit and in truth as God has revealed to us in His Word. Submission and surrender may be unpopular notions in our day, but there is absolutely no freedom in autonomy. And therein lies the heart of Reformed worship.

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Anthony Bradley has an insightful post exploring the differences between Calvinist and Reformed people, bringing to light the fact that they are not synonymous terms, despite being commonly perceived as such. He says,

There are many folks with Calvinist views of sin and salvation (T.U.L.I.P.--God-sin-Christ-faith) but are void of a Reformed view of creation and culture (creation-fall-redemption-consummation)...The confessional, doctrinalist, and highly pietist old southern denominational tradition with its emphasis on the church as an alternative community and an escape from culture may explain why missionally minded Reformed folks do not find a reference point in those circles...You can fully embrace T.U.L.I.P. and reduce Christianity to individualistic personal piety, withdrawal from culture with a false sacred/secular distinction, confuse the Kingdom with the church, be void of a doctrine of creation, etc.

This is an important distinction to make, I think, and helped me to put my finger on why I occasionally feel out of place among the most conservative of Calvinists, even though I subscribe to most of the same doctrines they do. There is a lot more to say on this (perhaps it can be the subject of another series). For now, go and read the rest of Anthony's post here.

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By virtue of my heritage, I am profoundly interested in, and an adherent to, Reformed theology. By virtue of the scholarly interests of a former professor of mine, I am also interested in the theology and history of the Eastern Orthodox tradition. Being in school has not afforded me a lot of extra time to do any reading on the subject, but whenever I get an opportunity to do so, I take it.

There are a number of reasons for my interest in the Orthodox tradition, but one of the main reasons is because of the vast, unexplored (in the West, anyway) history that separates our traditions:

For the past fifteen hundred years, the Latin and Greek traditions in the community of Christians have had disparate histories, with widely contrasting experiences to separate and complicate their relations. The formal schism between Rome and Constantinople...is only an outward sign of the deeper schism in the soul of Christendom. Since the seventh century, Byzantine Christianity had to exist first as the state of a beleaguered fortress-Empire and then as the religion of a persecuted minority under the Crescent scimitar. It bears the scars of the ruin it suffered at the hands of Crusaders and Turks alike. For ten centuries it survived without the kind of academic institutions which helped raise the West from barbarism. It lived more by its liturgy than its literature, more by the lex orandi, lex credendi than by the genius of its doctors.

Small wonder, then, that the images of Eastern Christianity in Western manuals of church history are usually uncomprehending--with their phrases about 'theological stagnation,' 'arrested development,' 'traditionalism.' Small wonder, too, that the sporadic efforts at rapprochement between East and West have been so volatile--and so unfamiliar to the generality of Western Christians. Now that the modern ecumenical movement has put Orthodox and Protestant theologians back into dialogue, this ignorance of ours about their history is worse than embarrassing. It turns our conversation into cross-talk.

Even though I am very familiar with the contours of the history of the Church, I remain only vaguely familiar with the history of the Eastern Church. As a result, I often grab on to opportunities to learn more about it. But I am also always interested in learning more of the history of the Calvinist tradition, and in the figure of Cyril Lucaris, I am able to explore the history of both of these traditions as they interacted with each other in a very unique way in the seventeenth century:

One of the most noteworthy chapters in this strange history has to do with the century-long, backstage parley that went on between various Protestants and Greeks in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Many Protestants, uneasy about their breach with the Christian past, saw in Orthodoxy a sounder link than Rome with the church catholic. At least a few Orthodox leaders saw in Protestantism not only an authentic reformatory impulse, but also an ally against the aggressions of Counter-Reformation Rome. The most dramatic episode in this chapter was the brief flowering of Cyril Lucaris, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople (1620-1638, intermittently), educator, statesman, and Calvinist theologian.

Listening to an Orthodox podcast once, I recall the two men hosting the program stating that they found in Reformed tradition one of the richest expressions of theology in the Protestant traditions. With that said, although I was quite surprised to hear about Lucaris' efforts to introduce Calvinist theology to the Orthodox tradition and am aware that there are some significant theological differences in the respective traditions, there is, it would seem, some sort of commonalities that would foster this sort of interaction.

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Mankind has a tendency to look backwards, to perceive things in a nostalgic light. This is characteristic of those who talk about the 1950s as "the good ol' days," romanticizing the post-war period as the way things should be. It was a decade of innocence, prosperity, and family values. Of course, historical studies will quickly demonstrate that such a naïve perspective is rather unwarranted.

Similarly in theology, people sometimes wonder what life would have been like had Adam not sinned and cast the curse of sin over the rest of humanity. We look back to the Garden of Eden and life before the fall as the perfect example of what life should have been like. But this is simply inaccurate. We must not look back, but look forward. Herman Bavinck says the following:

Adam did not possess the highest kind of life. The highest kind of life is the material freedom consisting of not being able to err, sin, or die. It consists in being absolutely above all fear and dread, above all possibility of falling. This highest life is immediately bestowed by grace through Christ upon believers. They can no longer sin (1 John 3:9) and they can no longer die (John 3:16) since by faith they immediately receive eternal, inamissible life. Theirs is the perseverance of the saints; they can no longer be lost. Hence, Christ does not [merely] restore his own to the state of Adam before the fall. He acquired and bestows much more, namely, that which Adam would have received had he not fallen. He positions us not at the beginning but at the end of the journey that Adam had to complete (Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. II: God and Creation, 573).

We must not, therefore, look back in longing as to what we could have been, for that type of thinking ignores grace and destroys hope. To sentimentalize the past and to always be looking back leaves us yearning for that which cannot and will not be again. What Adam could not and did not do, Christ did for us (cf. Romans 5:12-21). Therefore it is only through Christ that we have the hope of achieving the ultimate destiny that God intended for mankind.

But our hope is not yet fully realized, for although Christ has been victorious over death, he has not yet consummated his Kingdom and his rule, and so, to use Augustinian categories, we remain in the third of four stages---posse non peccare (able not to sin) but not yet non posse peccare (not able to sin). Thus a proper understanding of man must be progressive, not regressive. So we look forward and anticipate the return of Christ, the restoration of all things, and the glorification of man. Here is found the highest kind of life, and only here do we find our hope. And so we can say with the Psalmist, "Now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you" (Psalm 39:7).

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