The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. –John 1:5
Welcome once again to a new edition of Westminster Magazine
It is always a joy to connect with members of our growing family of faithful friends who love and pray for the seminary. The thousands of readers who receive our mag azine are the spiritual bulwark of Westminster’s mission to train specialists in the Bible who will proclaim the whole counsel of God for Christ and His global church, and I am particu larly grateful to present you with this special public theology issue.
It is a time of rejoicing as Westminster’s steadfast com mitment to the biblical truths of the sanctity of life has been encouraged by the ending of one of the deadliest court decisions in history—the now defunct but infamous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that opened the floodgate for the ending of millions of infant lives. Even before the Court reached that infamous decision in 1973, Westminster was teaching the biblical duty to protect the life of the unborn. And in more recent years, we’ve been privileged to defend our pro-life commitments in the Supreme Court, a remarkable story that I’m grateful we can share with you in this issue.
In addition to the sanctity of life, many of the topics addressed in this issue—sexual identity and cultural Marxism among them—are the fruit a recent summit for our Board of Trustees and Faculty. The summit was assembled to assess the impact these forces have had against the church and its sister institutions. As we engage topics that are at times controversial or debatable, and perhaps sensitive, we wish to recognize the commitments of our authors even as we cherish our common unifying commitment to the gospel truths of Christ and the our Reformed heritage. Most of all we seek to reflect Christ as light in the darkness. We pray the Lord will use these articles to deepen your thinking and encourage your conversations for the advance of the kingdom of God for the glory of Christ.
Sincerely in Christ’s service,
Peter A. Lillback, President
Volume 3 | Issue 1 | Fall 2022
Peter A. Lillback
Executive Editor
Jerry Timmis Editor
Josh Currie Associate Editor
Nathan Nocchi
Faith Chang Davey Fernandez
Jeff Hart Pierce Taylor Hibbs Photography
Abram Hammer Jenny Picard
Cover Design
Jessica Hiatt
Layout
Angela Messinger
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Cover art: Josephus Augustus Knip, The Shelling of ’s-Hertogenbosch by the French in 1794
David B. Garner
Brian G. Mattson
Peter A. Lillback
Westminster News, Events, and Alumni Updates
32 Faculty News and Updates
34 Faculty Interview: Alfred Poirier
36 From the Archive: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow | Paul Woolley
42 Westminster Kids | Josiah Pettit
50 Thoughts on Cultural Analysis | Vern Poythress
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article was published on the Gospel Reformation Network website prior to the 48th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). It has been revised for publication in this magazine.
If you have not heard the roar, you have probably been living in a closet. Pleading for understanding, love, and authentic care, many now boldly demand the church to allow Christians to articulate and even celebrate gay identity. The newly emboldened chorus declares, “We are gay Christians. We are same-sex attracted
(SSA) Christians This is who we are. And who are you to question our identity?”
At the same time, it has become increasingly popular, even within self-consciously conservative Presbyterian and Reformed churches, to label those who advocate traditional views of sexuality and sexual identity as an immature and irrelevant subset of the church who relish theological saber-rattling over compassion. Evidently, we sword-wielding traditionalists battle out of fear; because of our lack of Christian compassion, we reject the suppo sition that SSA is an unchangeable trait and that “SSA” or “gay” provides a suitable label for a Christian. To the SSA identity advocates, we are unloving, emotional ma nipulators, riveted to fear rather than governed by grace.
Notably, though many Christians who demand freedom to identify as SSA complain of being ostra cized, marginalized, and disenfranchised, they have not returned their own swords to their scabbards. Advocates of the new sexuality use their sense of pain as an emo tional weapon, and the more sophisticated seek to reposition the warfare onto a social theory frontline rather than a biblical one. The SSA identity warriors jab fiercely and furiously, and many faithful Christians have found themselves pummeled. This theological debate—and note well, it is a theological debate, and those who embrace SSA identity are fighting it—must not be framed around allegedly innocuous contemporary trends or denomina tional politics, and must not be treated dismissively by progressive culture warriors who describe their oppo nents as uninformed and unkind fundamentalists. Such a misrepresentation of the concerns expressed by chal lengers to the SSA identity paradigm is itself unhelpful, unfair, and unloving.
To be fair, some in the church are both angry and afraid. Some may see denominational fights as a badge of honor and a mark of gospel fidelity. Some treat unkindly those who daily battle SSA. But for many (most?) of us who oppose the SSA identity paradigm, we are not angry; we are deeply grieved. We believe God’s Word expressly opposes this new theological position and glo riously delivers the unqualified remedy. In fact, I would contend that most in the church who oppose SSA as an unchanging orientation and an acceptable category of self-identity for Christians do so out of love for Christ, His Word, and His church, along with zeal for Christ’s disciple-making mission. They respond out of fear of God, conviction, and compassion; they humbly contend for biblical and theological reasons.
Many grace-filled brothers and sisters speak openly against the SSA identity paradigm. These humble ser vants are no ivory-tower theologians, hurling theological darts from afar. They are followers of Christ who are mindful of their own sins and of their constant depen dence on the mercy of God. These are leaders whose own family members have exited their closets. These are men who shepherd congregations with people who identify, or have identified, as LGTBQ+. These are men and women who have shared the gospel with LGTBQ+ people, borne witness to their repentance and conversion to faith in Christ, and tearfully rejoiced with the angels. These are transformed saints who have counseled post-operative
transgender converts, who are legally united in marriage and face the difficult discipleship decision about how now to honor God.
And despite many opponents’ contention to the contrary, these are grace-filled Christians who do put the gospel first. They rejoice when men and women who are same-sex attracted obey God in their sexual behavior and who find contentment in their celibacy. But they do not stop there, because they know the gospel delivers more. For biblical and theological reasons, they refuse to believe that fallen sexual orientation is immovable and that identity is merely a state of mind. These are believers who trust the power of the gospel to change sinners and who believe God’s Word speaks directly to SSA identity and confirms the power of the Holy Spirit for genuine sanctification.
While all are rattled by the unrelenting blows of the current moral revolution, in their concerns about the SSA identity paradigm, these courageous and compassionate Christian servants are not caving to fear of man; they are reckoning with what it means to fear God and to love their neighbors. By contrast, if you listen long and hard to those making the case for a Christian version of SSA self-identity, you will wait in vain for a cogent biblical and theological defense. Almost without fail, a sentimental and sociological one fills the airspace. Yet these SSA matters need careful, biblical, theological, confessional, pastoral response. Who we are in Christ drives us to the very foundation of our faith. When it comes to sense of identity, what is our final court of appeal?
If you ask a group of evangelical or Reformed Christians to define “guilt,” most will describe a feeling of shame and sense of remorse. “Guilt is that feeling I have when I believe I have done something wrong.” Sounds basic, doesn’t it? Yes, but only to those who have imbibed the cultural waters of theology as primarily a matter of self-expression, a Schleiermachian-friendly paradigm where the interpretive framework for theol ogy draws foremost upon the sensibilities of the human psyche. This is not your father’s guilt. And it certainly is not the way your heavenly Father defines it.
According to almighty God, guilt and feelings of guilt are not the same thing. In fact, guilt is not a feeling. God defines righteousness. God defines sin. God defines
guilt. And to our point here, guilt is a fact—a divinely disclosed one based upon the explicit mandates of God’s Law. If you murder someone, you are guilty whether you feel badly or not. If you speak the truth in love to some one according to the need of the moment, you are not guilty whether or not you or your hearer feel badly.
Our “massively sentimental age,” as Brian Mattson has put it, has compromised our collective ability to navigate the gap between what is and what we perceive, what is true and what we feel. The hellish hegemony of the almighty self has poisoned the air we breathe, and sadly, the theological framework we now inhale and exhale. We should find little shock that this contaminated air has swept into our confessional churches.
It is time we breathe in God’s authoritative, life-giving Word afresh. According to Holy Scripture, God created you and me. He defines us. He interprets our status and identity. And His language matters. Though the cultural waters in which we swim seem make our sense of things the ultimate determiner of reality, it is not so. What is so is what God declares, no matter what we think or feel.
Scripture gives lucid explanation concerning who we were in Adam and who we are now in Christ. The Bible makes identity binary: we are either identified by and with the first Adam or identified by and with the Last Adam. As covenant heads, they and their respective characters and conduct demarcate our identities.
To the point, identity—like guilt—is a theological fact, not a product of human perception or feeling. When in Adam, no matter how good you may have felt about yourself, and how blindly optimistic you were about the ability of your mind, will, and emotions, you neither knew yourself nor interpreted yourself accurately. You did not and could not please God “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:8). Period. No qualifications. No exceptions. No equivocation. No redefinitions.
Dead in trespasses and sins, the sons of disobe dience needed new life—complete with a new heart, a renewed mind, a restored will, and a new identity. And that is exactly what we receive in the resurrected Christ. Scripture and Scripture’s Christ do not offer a reparative therapy program; they deliver
cosmically-critical, sin-forgiving, freedom-rendering, past-crushing, and utterly-transforming new life and new identity in Christ.
Christ, on the cross, not only conquered the guilt of sin but the power of sin. Jesus’s victory has rendered a decisive breach with sin, and His children are no longer identified by it or mastered by it. This is why the Apostle Paul says, “So you must also [along with Christ Jesus!] consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11).
Several important facts emerge in this text concern ing identity and sanctification:
1. Union with Christ. Christ is raised for us; and we are raised with him (Eph 2:6; 1 Cor. 15:12ff).
In the gospel, I not only receive the double graces of justification and sanctification, but I also receive the Christ who justifies and sanctifies me. I am His and He is mine. By His Holy Spirit, this inviolable bond between Son and the children of God, between the Redeemer and the redeemed, between Savior and the saved, provides the very framework for how we must see ourselves. We are in Christ. Full stop.
Therefore, no matter how stubborn the sin, the temp tation, the desire, the lust, or the sorrow, as one united to Christ by the Holy Spirit, we are not defined by our sense of things. The gospel frees you from this tyranny, includ ing the self-labeling and/or self-destructive intimations of SSA.
The deepest channels and strongest shackles of stub born sin no longer define us. We are a new creation in Christ. The old things have passed away. New things in Christ have come.
2. From Christ to Us. Our in-Christ identity bears di rectly upon our thinking and our use of language. As our Savior and Master, Jesus gives explicit mandates about self-identification, because we are united to him.
We are delivered by, determined by, and defined by the success of Christ and the power of His resurrection. For this reason, we must think and speak of ourselves according to our life in Christ.
A look to our prior sinful self for identity is not only wrong; it absurdly and perversely defies the mean ing of, power of, and nature of the work of Christ in His resurrection from the dead for us. His life is our life, His holiness, our holiness. “And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption”
(1 Cor. 1:30). Only in disobedience do we think of ourselves or speak of ourselves otherwise.
To think of ourselves in any way—even secretly—as still alive to sin is an open denial of the saving and sanc tifying power of God in Christ.
3. From Us to Christ. With Paul’s breathtaking doctrine of in-Christ solidarity, we discover seamless bi-directional riches of our vital communion with Him.
Note first the stunning historical argument. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul argues from our future resurrection to Christ’s past resurrection. “For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised” (1 Cor. 15:16). Solidarity with Christ is such that we cannot speak of Jesus’s past resurrection apart from our future one!
The implications for sanctification are mindbendingly marvelous, where the power of this resurrec tion solidarity bears upon our current morality: “And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!” (1 Cor. 6:14, 15). The point is startlingly blunt. If you go to bed with a prostitute, as a member of Christ’s body, you bring the holy Lord Jesus with you
our Savior, His holiness, and His saving and sanctifying work!
But don’t miss this. The SSA identity paradigm tells us language of self-description is no big deal. What ever someone chooses to use as language for them selves—“gay Christian,” “ex-gay Christian,” “same-sex attracted Christian,” etc., we should just accept it. The Apostle Paul says otherwise. Whatever adjective you are prepared to put before your name as a Christian, you first place it before the name of Christ. We are to con sider ourselves as we are, “alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11b).
One of the most frequent, and emotionally com pelling, arguments for the SSA identity par adigm is that to speak otherwise would be to live a lie. Because there may not be a felt change in sexual orientation and temptation, it is said that it is more hon est to simply embrace it inwardly and to express it aloud. That alone, many contend, is honesty.
Does the SSA attraction argument have a point here? Isn’t it dishonest to deny my sense of identity? Is God asking me to be inauthentic? Does God forge sanctification in my heart by denial of what is true? Hardly! Instead, he graciously informs us that any self-desig nation that does not align with Christ is itself the lie. Honesty occurs when I am in alignment with what God says about me in Christ. Anything else is deception. Anything else lacks authenticity.
I go, I take Christ with me.
This solidarity in Christ’s resurrection and our bi-directional communion with Christ shape self-identification. Wherever I go, I take Christ with me. Accordingly, our self-conception necessitates a Christ-conception. If I consider myself an SSA Chris tian, then Jesus is an SSA Christ. If I am a gay Christian, then Jesus is a gay Christ. What grotesque distortion of
Yes, our own sinful proclivities deliver real and regu lar threats. But isn’t that the point? The Christian life is a violent battle. But Christ has already won the war, no matter what I feel or perceive. As John Owen famously put it , “Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.” By the grace of God, I am freed from affirming my sin as an identity marker. I may repeatedly lust, get angry, pursue self-glory, or suffer SSA. But these sins do not define me. To claim otherwise outrightly denies the efficacy of the Christ’s cross and the power of His resurrection glory.
Recategorization of SSA as an untouchable identity fails the biblical and confessional test. This new per verse doctrine of sanctification requires befriending an identity that opposes Christ. Deciding that a particular besetting sin is no longer sinful may temporarily placate
This solidarity in Christ’s resurrection and our bi-directional communion with Christ shape self-identification. Wherever
one’s emotions. But friendship with the world is enmity with God. And to whatever degree we find affinity with this new SSA identity paradigm, we need confession, not concession. We need repentance, not redefini tion. We need authenticity, given by and defined by our Savior.
Real freedom is found in knowing that we are not prisoners of our pasts or to our own self-perceptions. We are not victims of the jet propulsion of lusts or of fallen aesthetic impulses. Thanks be to God! Christ frees us from these things. The gospel we preach delivers reverse thrust against our past sinful lives, our thinking and our willing. And to put a point on it, if it does not, it is not good news. A christ that leaves us in our old corrupt categories and abandons us in our own self-interpreting devices is not the Christ of Scripture.
Fellow Christians and my fellow teachers and leaders of the church, the resurrected and exalted Christ defines us. No matter how we may feel, we are not Muslim fol lowers of Christ, materialist followers of Christ, or SSA followers of Christ. Such language opposes the gospel. We are instead sons and daughters of God, who possess a new name, a new heart, new language, and a categori cally new orientation. And as those in Christ, that is how we must count ourselves.
To be sure, we may not taste the newness in the way we would like. In that sense, we join the Apostle Paul (see Romans 7)! We may even feel that we have failed to progress a millimeter. But that self-perception of failure may be as flawed as thinking that gospel sanctification is impotent against sexual orientation. We may also need to (re)submit to the mandate of Romans 6:11, to count ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Unless we yield our minds and hearts—and our sense of identity—to God’s Word, we will formulate and affirm misguided conclusions. Romans 6:11 provides the definitive starting point for divinely certain progress in sanctification, including the rescue from my faulty sense of identity.
Though SSA identity advocates demand us to join them in this newfound paradigm, to do so is neither loving nor honest. The SSA identity paradigm aligns neither with Scripture nor our confessional standards,
and we should make this point lovingly, lucidly, and lastingly.
There is no room for fluidity in this debate. Identity is either defined by us or defined by God. Sanctification either extends to us comprehensively or it is not gospel sanctification. Sin is stubborn and internal proclivities surely still fight mightily against us. But as fierce as is the warfare, Christ the Victor and our Identifier is greater still.
As the leaders and teachers of Christ’s church, we must remain steadfast in affirming these glorious truths, our biblical and confessional standards, and the compre hensive hope of the gospel to unbelievers. Indeed, let us delight in the gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord, who is the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, the fully adequate sanctifying Savior of sinners.
For the glory of God and the honor of his Son Christ Jesus and with the theological, evangelistic, and pastoral delight incumbent upon officers of Christ’s church, let us hold fast our convictions so well-expressed in West minster Larger Catechism 75 (emphasis mine):
Sanctification is a work of God’s grace, whereby they whom God hath, before the foundation of the world, chosen to be holy, are in time, through the powerful operation of his Spirit applying the death and resurrection of Christ unto them, renewed in their whole man after the image of God; having the seeds of repentance unto life, and all other saving graces, put into their hearts, and those graces so stirred up, increased, and strengthened, as that they more and more die unto sin, and rise unto newness of life.
David B. Garner (PhD, Westminster Theological Seminary) is Academic Dean, Vice President of Global Ministries, and Professor of Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. David Garner has served in theological education, pastoral ministry, missions, and para-church ministries since 1986. He has lived and taught in various parts of the world, including Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. He is the author of Sons in the Son and also serves as the systematic theology Book Review Editor for Themelios Journal
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Louis Daguerre, The Ruins of Holyrood Chapel (1824)
Contemporary critical theory may be a postmodern phenomenon, but its roots in older forms of modernism are often overlooked. It essentially distills the “methodological doubt” of Descartes into something less watered down—a “cask-strength” edition, if you will, com plete with a new label: the “ hermeneutic of suspicion.” Failure to recognize this intellectual genealogy may cause one to overlook helpful resources that pre-date our recent cultural upheavals.
One such resource is a figure rarely mentioned, someone who has done more for my understanding of the challenges of Critical Theory than any other, even though he didn’t write directly about it. Eric Voegelin was a political scientist who finished his career at Louisiana State University. Prior to that, in 1951, he received an appointment at the University of Munich. At his inauguration, he delivered two lectures that are now pub lished as a little book titled Science, Politics & Gnosticism. 1
Providentially, I first encountered this book some twenty years ago while walking through the stacks at the Montgomery Library at Westmin ster Theological Seminary. The title randomly caught my eye, so I pulled it from the shelf, sat down, and read the whole thing straight through in one sitting. What a title! Science, politics, and…Gnosticism? In his introduction to the book, Ellis Sandoz addresses that last, jarring term:
Does Voegelin really contend that modern mass ideological movements and dominant ‘philosophical ’ schools in the modern world are vitiated by being in some sense continuations of the various anti-Christian sects denominated and discredited as heretical because ‘gnostic’ in antiquity—for instance, the Manicheans and Valentinians? Yes, he does.
Voegelin had in mind the mass ideological movements of the 20th century: communism, fascism, and national socialism. But there is connective tissue between those movements and those of our day that might illumine our understanding. By Voegelin’s analysis, Critical Theory is a new mass ideological movement and, more importantly, a species of Gnosticism. Here are three salient features of Voegelin’s critique: First, gnostics are at war with what he calls the “order of being.” In the parlance of Christian theology (of which, by the way, he was keenly ap preciative), they are at war with creation ordinances; they are at war with being creatures. The order of being, creation itself, is intrinsically corrupt, and mankind, “true” man, must liberate himself by taking control and re-weaving the very fabric of reality. And that can only be done, he observed, through deicide. He writes:
In order, therefore, that the attempt to create a new world may seem to make sense, the givenness of the order of being must be obliterated; the order of being must be interpreted, rather, as essentially under man’s control. And taking control of being further requires that the transcendent origin of being be obliterated; it requires the decapita tion of being—the murder of God. 2
This is the primal root of Nietzsche’s “Death of God” philosophy, and it also animates Marx’s own critique of religion. In his Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law, Marx puts it this way:
To abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand their real happiness. The demand to give up illusions about the existing state of affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs which needs illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of tears, the halo of which is religion.3
The demand here is a fundamental reversal of the “state of affairs”—the “order of being”—to liberate man into a world having no need of illusions, the chief of which is God. What makes this peculiarly gnostic is that Marx’s critique of injustice is not a critique of fallenness—which is what we ought to mean by “ injus tice”—but a war against even the notion of createdness, or givenness itself. Just as for the gnostics of old, the “Al mighty, Creator of heaven and earth” is at best a demon who made a foul and polluted world, and it is with Him and his world that they are at war.
Does this war on the “order of being” sound familiar? It is no longer about the “New Soviet Man,” to be sure, but what else is the current erasure of the sexes, the invention of “ birthing persons,” the rejection of any connection between one’s basic biology and one’s would-be completely autonomous state of mind, or the notion that the nuclear family is a harmful institution that must be transcended? For Marx and his followers, the critique of religion is not just a rejection of grace; it is the repudia tion of nature, as well.
Second, this criticism is what Voegelin calls an “ intellectual swindle.” It pretends to engage in reason and argument, but at the end of the day it feels no need to establish or defend its premises. Questioning is out of bounds for the revolutionary, who, after all, has not arrived at his position by questioning. Criticism is not fundamentally about intellectual inquiry; it is a means to an end, and that end is the complete overturning of power structures. What irony! When the Critical Theorist derisively calls all propositions or arguments or truth claims mere linguistic power plays, it is psychological projection, for that is precisely what he or she is engaged in. Listen again to Marx:
Criticism does not need to make things clear to it self as regards this subject-matter, for it has already dealt with it. Criticism appears no longer as an end in itself, but only as a means. Its essential sentiment is indignation, its essential activity is denunciation 4
Criticism “ does not need to make things clear to itself.” It is, in a word, self-authenticating; the acid of rad ical skepticism, applied so thoroughly to the objects of its malice (in Marx’s case, bourgeois capitalism), miraculously leaves the critic himself untouched! As a friend recently quipped to me, “ The hermeneutics of suspicion never suspects itself.” Voegelin ably exposes how Critical Theory excuses itself from its own enterprise and hopes that we will not notice.
Note also Marx’s description of criticism’s essential sentiment as indignation and its essential activity as denunciation. Why does it seem to only know “How dare you?” (indignation) and “ You are a bigot” (denunciation)? Because that is the only point Let us avoid naiveté: what we might view as “ bugs” in this worldview—its unwillingness to be questioned, to engage in real debate, readiness to resort to the ad hominem—are, in the minds of its adherents, features.
In an essay that might well have been written yes terday, C.S. Lewis explained the art of not refuting an opponent, but rather explaining why your opponent is self-evidently wrong. As in, “Let me explain to you all the socially constructed factors that molded you into the evil oppressor you are.” He called this fallacy “Bulverism,” and you hear it incessantly in these common maneuvers: “ You only say that because…” You are a capitalist pig. You are white. Male. Cisgender. Heterosexual. Fundamentalist. Bigot. And so on. Lewis sharply observed:
Now this is obviously great fun; but it has not always been noticed that there is a bill to pay for it. There are two questions that people who say this kind of thing ought to be asked. The first is, Are all thoughts thus tainted at the source, or only some? The second is, Does the taint invalidate the tainted thought—in the sense of making it untrue—or not?
If they say that all thoughts are thus tainted, then, of course, we must remind them that Freudianism and Marxism are as much systems of thought as Christian theology or philosophical
idealism. The Freudian and the Marxian are in the same boat with all the rest of us, and cannot criticize us from outside. They have sawn off the branch they were sitting on. If, on the other hand, they say that the taint need not invalidate their thinking, then neither need it invalidate ours. In which case they have saved their own branch, but also saved ours along with it. 5
But I don’t believe Lewis quite appreciated just how serious the Critical Theorists were. They exempt themselves from this logic, nowadays dismissing logic itself as an artifact of “ white supremacy.” Moreover, Marx himself stated openly that ad hominem—which is, of course, what “Bulverism” is—is absolutely necessary for his revolutionary program:
[…] material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses. Theory is capable of gripping the masses as soon as it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical. 6
Most importantly, Lewis failed to grasp that these people do not view themselves as being in the same boat with the rest of humanity. They are gnostics, the “ know ing ones,” those initiated into the secrets of the cosmos and the souls of men. They have the secret insight, the vision, and the techniques to tear down the order of re ality and bring into existence the parousia, the arrival, of a new utopian paradise. Gnosis, or secret knowledge and insight, is the key to achieving this, and it is no accident that in our day these practitioners call themselves “ woke.” They are self-appointed, god-like emissaries, liberators of the elect and judge, jury, and executioner of the rep robate. In the case of Marx’s own political program, I mean that quite literally. As a matter of historical record, gulags, firing squads, and mass starvation are the fruits of this rotten tree.
And that is the third observation I wish to draw from Voegelin. Read this chilling passage:
The nature of a thing cannot be changed; whoever tries to ‘alter’ its nature destroys the thing. Man cannot transform himself into a superman; the attempt to create a superman is an attempt to murder man.
Historically, the murder of God is not followed by the superman, but by the murder of man: the dei cide of the gnostic theoreticians is followed by the homicide of the revolutionary practitioners.7
God cannot be touched. So, this endeavor inevitably turns to the next-best thing: the slaying or disfigurement of his image, the imago Dei. Attempted deicide has, and will, lead to homicide.
To be clear, I am speaking about the past and not current events. I do not much like or approve of the hys terical catastrophism of our contemporary politics. But wise is the adage that those who do not learn from his tory are destined to repeat it. Still more sobering is the postscript to that adage provided by a cartoon I watched recently: a wizened old professor added, “And those who do learn from history are destined to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it.”
Here I ought to point out clearly that I am calling a certain worldview, a set of ideas and practices, a move ment , potentially deadly. That is not at all the same thing as calling Aunt Matilda, who proudly displays her Black Lives Matter sign in her front yard, a murderer. Maybe Aunt Matilda is right, and we really are just talking about equal rights and opportunity under the law and police brutality and structural disadvantages for minori ties, all topics which can and should be discussed and debated in any humane society.
But I will ask: could Aunt Matilda—good-natured, compassionate, and well-intentioned Aunt Matilda—be mistaken? Should we just ignore that the Black Lives Matter organization’s official mission statement (lately scrubbed from the Internet) was a full-throated endorse ment of Marxist revolution and the aims of the LGBTQ+ community, along with a clear call for the eradication of the nuclear, biological family? Is it out of bounds to peer behind the curtain like a good critic (ahem) to see if there’s some ulterior motive? No, not peer behind: they have told us openly their mission statement. And it is, on
Voegelin’s terms, a new gnostic mass ideological move ment. There are dogmas, creeds, confessions, catechisms, orthodoxies, heresies, and excommunications. As many commentators have noted, it is a pagan religion of its own. 8 It is gnostic, and Gnosticism is by definition out side the bounds of Christian orthodoxy.
To that we must turn. It is one thing to talk at a dis tance about the young Jacobin interns running Twitter or holding hostage the editors of The New York Times. It is one thing to realize that many who espouse elements of Critical Theory are, like my (fictional) Aunt Matilda, professing Christian believers sitting in the pew. It is another thing altogether to realize that some are standing in the pulpit.
In April of 2021 Pastors Duke Kwon and Gregory Thompson together published a book entitled Repa rations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair. 9 The title speaks for itself. They believe it a Christian duty to support efforts to pay financial restitution to the descen dants of African slaves, due to the economic disparities that linger largely, in their view, from America’s past legacy of slavery.
Pastor Kevin DeYoung wrote a thorough and wellreceived review of the book, and he raised a variety of very deep and thoughtful questions about their proposal.10 Kwon and Thompson then wrote a lengthy response.11 Allow me to highlight three aspects of their reply which all come from the Critical Theory playbook. In doing so, I should make clear that by using this particular illustration it is not my intention to revive this debate in the pages of Westminster Magazine (a debate which readers can find online and which Rev. DeYoung put ably enough to bed on his own); I use it rather as an illustration of the likely ways readers are likely to encounter instances of Critical Theory in their church communities. First, their critique of DeYoung is purely ad hominem. Second, its “Criticism” (capitalized to indicate their explicit method of analysis) exempts itself from its own suspicion by presenting itself as self-attesting, non-falsifiable truth. And that will lead me to a final, closing observation.
Here is their own summary of their lengthy case against DeYoung:
Though we believe that he neither sees it nor intends it, Reverend DeYoung, in his review, methodologically centers whiteness at every turn.
Like King’s opponents in 1963, he consistently privileges white theological voices, minimizes white supremacy ’s tragic impact on the lives of “ nonwhite” persons, and prioritizes the comfort of white people. And in this respect, while he does not argue for white supremacy, he nevertheless performs its most basic impulses. In so doing, he not only tacitly commends some of the most egregious blindspots and tendencies in our theological tradition, he also inadvertently lends his learned and powerful voice to the tragic work of sanctifying the cultural status quo. Viewed in this light, DeYoung’s review does much more than simply reject our book. It actually perpetuates the very social conditions that our book was written to address.12
This is their own summary of what comprises the whole of their critique. They explicitly refuse to engage DeYoung’s questions or respond to his biblical arguments because the more pressing task is to explain, to borrow Lewis’s phrase, why Kevin DeYoung has become so silly. It isn’t DeYoung’s fault. They do not blame him. He is simply captive to certain modes of thinking from which he has not yet been liberated: namely, “ whiteness.” He cannot help but “perform the basic impulses of white supremacy” and “sanctify the status quo” and “perpetuate the very social conditions” their book was written to ad dress. This is textbook “Bulverism.” Discredit the man by pointing to the social factors that “make him” say what he does, and the task is complete. It amounts to saying, “Kevin DeYoung only disagrees with us because he has sadly not yet agreed with us.” He is not yet “ woke.” He remains asleep to his hidden prejudices.
Second, this method of critique, which claims to probe into the depths of unacknowledged biases and presuppositions, is a one-way street. Only DeYoung is susceptible to being shaped and taken captive by worldly ways of thinking. They are unbothered that they habitually use the arguments and vocabulary of not only the most wildly popular and widely celebrated socio-political movements in the western world, but also one with an explicitly anti-Christian pedigree. We are not allowed to ask why DeYoung can be so badly warped by his social context, but Kwon and Thompson are immune from theirs. Critical Theory does not allow this question. The hermeneutic of suspicion does not suspect itself.
Finally, the fact that Kwon and Thompson explicitly set the Bible aside in their reply, for all intents and pur poses declaring it to be a useless, closed book unless and until their interlocutor thoroughly purges himself of his “ whiteness,” indicates something important about their view of the scriptures. They are saying, in effect, that you cannot rightly read it and unlock its truth unless you are first liberated to understand it as they do.
Liberated by what , then? If the Word of God is to be held in abeyance, set aside as a chaser or an after-thefact supplement to some prior, more basic spiritual and intellectual awakening, what brings about the necessary renewal? What do they think will bring DeYoung to his senses? What argument do they actually deploy? What is it in their response that they deem “ living and active”? What is “sharper than any two-edged sword”? What “penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow”? What “ judges the thoughts and the attitudes of the heart” ?
An obvious answer suggests itself: Critical Theory. Only by embracing and acknowledging the critique of Critical Race Theory will Kevin DeYoung or anybody else see the truth of the Word of God. Without it, one remains imprisoned, fated to read the Bible according to one ’s distorted, self-serving lenses, to perform the “ basic impulses” of “ white supremacy” or to “sanctify the status quo.” It is not the Word of God that will liberate Kevin DeYoung; Kwon and Thompson do not even bother trying. Only Critical Race Theory will adequately judge the thoughts and attitudes of his heart to the necessary depths. And then, and only then, will they deign to engage the Scriptures with their critic.
This might be shocking, coming as it does in a con fessionally Reformed context. But this is not the first time that what in principle amounted to an anti-Chris tian worldview cloaked itself in the language of Chris tian orthodoxy. It is not the first time something was called “gospel” that, in the final analysis, contained no real good news at all. Indeed, it is not even the first time it has happened in a confessionally Reformed context.
In an earlier instance, by God ’ s grace, a man saw through it all and exposed it not as a legitimate expres sion of the Christian religion, but as a different religion altogether. That man went on to found an academic institution and built into its very DNA the discipline of discerning these spirits by the Word of God.
The institution remains, the challenge remains, and
it takes only resolve to embody J. Gresham Machen’ s true “ warrior spirit.” Machen did not fight fractious and immature battles over second-order theological hobby horses. Where he held the line he was admired by his opponents for his civility and earnest engage ment with their stated beliefs. Rather, Machen stood athwart counterfeit Christianity for the cause of Jesus Christ and his kingdom. May God grant that to be the enduring legacy of Westminster Theological Seminary as it labors to equip Christ’s global church against its many foes.
1 Eric Voegelin, Science, Politics, & Gnosticism (Wilmington: ISI, 2nd Printing, 2007).
2 Ibid., 40.
3 Karl Marx, “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, On Religion (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), 39.
4 Ibid., 40-41.
5 C.S. Lewis, “Bulverism: Or, The Foundation of 20th Century Thought,” in God in the Dock (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 272.
6 Marx, “Critique,” 46.
7 Voegelin, Science, Politics, & Gnosticism, 48.
8 E.g., John McWhorter, Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America (New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2021)
9 Duke L. Kwon and Gregory Thompson, Reparations: A Christian Call For Repentance and Repair (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2021).
10 Kevin DeYoung, “Reparations: A Critical Theological Review,” (https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung /reparations-a-critical-theological-review/)
11 Greg Thompson and Duke Kwon, “Sanctifying the Status Quo: A Response to Reverend Kevin DeYoung,” The Front Porch (Online). https://thefrontporch.org/2021/07/sanctifying-the-status-quo-a -response-to-reverend-kevin-deyoung/ 12 Ibid.
Brian Mattson is Visiting Adjunct Professor of Systematic and Public Theology at Westminster, and Senior Scholar of Public Theology for the Center for Cultural Leadership. He is the author of Cultural Amnesia: Three Essays on Two Kingdom Theology and A Smith River Journal: An Adventure of Faith, Fatherhood, and Friendship. He also publishes a weekly newsletter, The Square Inch
Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. (Prov. 3:3, ESV)
“Heresy” is a strong word that can leave a mark. In the Church, we sometimes have to caution younger students of theology to be wary of slinging the “H word” around too casually in their zeal to “guard the trust” (1 Tim. 6:20). Nevertheless, heresy is real, and it is a harsh taskmaster, as C. FitzSimons Allison tells is in his book, The Cruelty of Heresy:
We are susceptible to heretical teachings because, in one form or another, they nurture and reflect the way we would have it be rather than the way God has provided, which is infinitely better for us. As they lead us into the blind alleys of self-indulgence and escape from life, heresies pander to the most unworthy tendencies of the human heart. It is astonishing how little attention has been given to these two as pects of heresy: its cruelty and its pandering to sin. …Scarcely any ancient heresy can be found that does not have a modern expression; scarcely is there a modern heresy that we have not seen before.1
As one might guess from the title of his book, Allison is calling for a renewal of the Church’s defense of a delight in the Trinitarian and Christological truth fought over and for in the early centuries of the Church. “Heresy is rightly, fittingly a strong word that must be when affirmations central to biblical orthodoxy are rejected.”
“Heresy” can also be confusing, especially when it is wielded manipulatively, in an effort to alter the terms of a debate. A recent example of this was demonstrated by television personality and former Florida Congressman, Joe Scarborough—a self-described “backslidden Baptist” who still “knows the Bible,”—when he claimed that,
since Jesus never said anything about abortion, that “for people perverting the gospel of Jesus Christ down to one issue [abortion], it’s heresy.”2
If this backslidden Baptist, who still knows the Bible, only knew some basic hermeneutics, he would have made the connection between the law of Moses and the words of Christ, and might have resisted the rhetorical allure of what he thought amounted to a mic-drop-moment argument from silence. By appealing to Jesus, Scarborough provides a glaring example of Corruptio optimi pessimum est—“the corruption of the best is the worst.” However, Joe Scarborough is not alone. When the US Supreme Court ruled on June 24, 2022, in the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, that the Constitution of the United States never has and does not declare a woman’s right to abortion, sending the issue of abortion to the states,3 a tragic number of clergy across the country rushed to their keyboards to lament the unconstitutionality of this decision. We might expect this of mainline denominations and clergy, such as Rev. Jes Kast of the United Church of Christ, who was quick to Tweet a day after Dobbs that the circumcision in Galatia, in which Paul was arguing for bodily autonomy, is a precedent for “You can choose what to do with your body.” A serious misreading of scripture consistent with her prior com ments in The Atlantic:
When people talk about “Our body is a temple of God, and holy,” I see that as I have the right to choices over my body, and the freedom to make the decisions that are right for me 4
Prior to that interview in The Atlantic, she tweeted:
My first protest that my parents took me to was when I was 12. It was an anti-abortion protest. But as Scripture says, when I became an adult
I put childish thinking behind me. I only knew impart [sic].
Now I serve on the Clergy Advocacy Board for Planned Parenthood. How did I get here?
This is yet another example of a not-so-subtle ma neuver pro-abortion advocates have employed in recent years, involving word games that would have made Wittgenstein proud. Through some real conceptual gym nastics, they’ve coopted the nomenclature of the pro-life community, reverse-thrusting with their own categories, redefining and spinning words and phrases to their own devices. Suddenly, pro-life people are actually the real killers because they always neglect the babies after they’re born. Pro-life people, the assertion (not argument) goes, only care about a baby within the womb, because it’s easy—that fetus cannot place any demands on the prolife person. Convenient, right? Curiously, those making
such claims never seem willing to do the research that would yield mountains of data on just how sacrificially committed pro-life Christians are to women, children, and men affected by the realities of choosing life instead of abortion. Perhaps a visit to a crisis pregnancy center would temper the quickness of pro-abortion faithful to play the “pro-lifers-are-only-pro-birth” card.
In a move similar to Scarborough’s, former pastor, now life coach, Paul Swearengin, insists, “Anyone who uses ‘Thou shalt not kill’ as a command against abortion is missing the fact that the Bible never once says life begins at conception. It really never speaks directly to it. Besides, hundreds of verses say we’re commanded to take care of the poor and the marginalized.”5 Of course, some things are just too plain to say. One need only ponder the implications of passages, such as Exod. 21:22–25, wherein the death penalty is prescribed for someone who causes the death of a baby in the womb; Ps. 139:13-16, which
Thomas Cole, The Voyage of Life: Childhood (1842)
speaks beautifully of God’s knitting a person together in the womb; Jer. 1:5, in which God was in personal rela tionship with Jeremiah even before he was knit together in the womb; or Lk 1:41, in which the Spirit enabled personal acknowledgment of two cousins in the wombs of their mothers, Elizabeth and Mary.
But this manipulative language isn’t only used co vertly. We even hear open claims in the media today by pro-abortion activists that they are the true pro-lifers! After all, they tell us, it is pro-life to favor a woman’s right to bodily autonomy, pro-life to want to see women not shackled down by having to raise a child instead of pursuing an education and career, pro-life to prevent children with Down’s Syndrome from being born and having to face life with such a disability, pro-life to decrease the potential for minority babies to grow up in poverty, pro-life to fight against the “fact” that opposition to abortion arises from and perpetuates white supremacy. This last one would make Margaret Sanger proud. Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, desired a program of eugenics to help with what she saw as the problem of a growing black population. Sanger’s credena (what she believed) and her agenda (what she accomplished) have been a sinister symbiosis. The 2015 Policy Report of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education revealed that since 1973, 44 million babies around the nation had been aborted by 2015.6 Today it is estimated that more than 63 million abortions have been carried out since Roe V. Wade was enacted. Approximately one million abortions are performed in the U.S. each year, according to the Guttmacher Institute.7 What is rarely covered in mainstream media, however, is the fact that Margaret Sanger’s original vision for the control of the black population in the nation has largely been realized—the majority of these abortions have been performed in minority communi ties. 8 Tragically, these numbers were only allowed to grow until the Dobbs ruling. The discriminatory and racist impact of abortion in the U.S. is undeniable. This adoption of pro-life language by abortion rights advocates is consistent with the larger dynamic that we learn in covenantal apologetics, wherein unbelievers borrow epistemic capital from the Christian worldview. The Van Tilian, covenantal apologetic that is at the heart of our theological program at Westminster teaches us that only with the Triune God of the Bible and the Bible of the Triune God can we account for the laws of logic— inductive reason upon which science depends, deductive
reasoning upon which math depends, the normativity of nature upon which science depends, objectivity in predi cation upon which language depends, universals, morality, personhood, and the list goes on. In other words, a naturalist/physicalist worldview, committed as it is, to the exclusive existence of matter and energy in randomness, cannot account for the laws of logic or the norma tivity of nature. For the laws of logic are non-corporeal and nature displays undeniable regularity, neither of which fit within the worldview commitments of atheistic naturalism. In other words, the pro-abortion attempt to borrow the pro-life label is consistent with a worldview that isn’t established on God’s Word.
In light of this changing landscape post-Dobbs, there are new questions for the Church to answer about our pro-life identity. What does it mean to stand fast in faith ful Christian witness in our cultural moment? What does it look like to live pro-life in a post-Roe world, in which abortion is more intensely front and center in every arena, than it has been in years? Depending which state you live in, this may no longer look like deciding which companies to boycott, or how to peacefully engage in cobelligerent protest with other pro-life people. But regardless of your location, the question of living faithfully must begin with the question of thinking faithfully and thinking biblically about the worldview contours of the issue. Being able to thoughtfully engage others who do not believe the way we do in these matters is something the Reformed worldview is uniquely called and equipped to do.
We are uniquely equipped for this apologetical task because of the very object of apologetics. A brief look at 1
This is yet another example of a not-so-subtle maneuver pro-abortion advocates have employed in recent years, involving word games that would have made Wittgenstein proud.
Pet. 3:15–16 and 2 Cor. 10:3–6 will make my point. Peter calls upon every follower of Christ to be an apologist. He writes, not to people with PhDs in apologetics, but to a group of persecuted Roman Christians who were worried about being thrown to the lions. It’s in this context that Peter encourages them to make a defense, “…but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, al ways being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame” (1 Pet. 3:15–16).
What can we take from this text? First, the task of apologetics is primarily a matter of the lordship of Christ in the heart. Second, we are to be always ready to make a defense of the reason for the hope that is within us. To apply this to our present topic, we must position ourselves in the defense of the faith and the defense of the preborn as HOPE DEFENDERS. The object of our defense is nothing less than that which is most needful today—the hope that the Christian faith alone offers. We are to do this with gentleness and respect—the reverence due to even those with whom we disagree most, as they— just like the unborn children we seek to protect—are gloriously created imago Dei
In 2 Cor. 10:3-6, Paul issues a similar exhortation:
For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.
We are called to demolish, not people, but the pretensions that keep people in bondage—worldviews that are raised against the knowledge of God. Taken together, these scriptures confirm we are HOPE DEFENDERS, who function both as the welcoming committee and the wrecking crew. We are gentle, respectful, and we demolish.
In many ways, worldview is the crux of the issue postRoe. We need to ask, “What are the worldview implica tions, intentional and unintentional, of the pro-abortion position?” Understanding this is crucial in meaningful Christian witness. As G. K. Chesterton observed:
But there are some people, nevertheless—and I am one of them—who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy. We think that for a general about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy’s numbers, but still more important to know the enemy’s philosophy. We think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether, in the long run, anything else affects them.9
The first time we read of worldview is in Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgment (1790), in which he juxta poses the noumenal, which we cannot intuit, yet can be regarded as the “substrate underlying what is mere appearance, namely, our intuition of the world (Weltan shauung).” While this is not the place to do a deep dive into the intricacies of Kant’s philosophical program, it should be pointed out that what he postulates as the transcendental behind our experience, later Christian theologians were quick to recognize, not as postulation, but as a Person, apart from whom we cannot properly have a true worldview or life-system. In response, James Orr appealed for comprehensive Christocentricity when it comes to worldview:
It is the Christian view of things in general which is attacked, and it is by an exposition and vindication of the Christian view of things as a whole that the attack can most successfully be met.10
Everything here, of course, depends on the view we take of Christianity itself. The view we hold to at Westminster centers in the Divine and human Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. It implies the true Divinity as well as the true humanity of the Christian Redeemer. Unfortunately, this is a view of Christianity that we are not at liberty to take for granted, as Ligonier’s 2022 “The State of Theology” report makes clear.11 But we must be prepared in due course to vindicate it. I would only at present point out that, for the person who does accept it, a very definite view of things emerges. He who with his whole heart believes in Jesus as the Son of God is thereby committed to much else besides. He is committed to a view of God, to a view of man, to a view of sin, to a
view of Redemption, to a view of the purpose of God in creation and history, to a view of human destiny, found only in Christianity. This forms a “Weltanschauung,” or “Christian view of the world,” which stands in marked contrast within theories wrought out from a purely phil osophical or scientific standpoint.12
Thinkers such as Orr and his contemporary Abra ham Kuyper conceived of worldview exclusively in term of Christ, and specifically, the historically resurrected Christ. This is central to the hope we defend. The res urrected Christ, and all the implications thereof, is the crown jewel of the hope we have to offer, as we seek to be a faithfully subversive witness in this culture of death in which we find ourselves.
The struggle over abortion in this nation touches every piece of the worldview puzzle: theology, anthro pology, epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. How we engage those who oppose life in its most vulnerable un born stage must seek to understand what a pro-abortion position assumes, generally speaking, about each of these five areas, as well as set forth the covenantal and Christo centric hope all along the way.
We must begin our consideration of living and witnessing pro-life in a post-Roe America by realizing that the issue of abortion is not first and foremost a political question. It is a theological question, a question about the very nature of God: Who is God? Can God be known? Does God see me? Does he care? One need not look far for evidence—pop culture is bursting with curiosity, from the sincere if misguided questions of Joan Osborne’s “What If God Was One of Us” to the more reckless speculation of Dishwalla’s “Counting Blue Cars (Tell Me All Your Thoughts on God).”
The question of who God is, who has the rightful claim to the throne of glory really goes all the way back to the Garden where our first parents’ eyes were opened to see what pathetic excuses for gods they turned out to be. The temptation to remake God in our own image, to redefine what he has revealed about himself, is ultimately a quest to be our own gods. It never goes very well, at all. Yet, the perennial question of who gets to be God is the question of the abortion debate. To be sure, the ques tion of what constitutes life is central. But that question
cannot be answered apart from settling the theological question. As far back as 1990, F. LaGard Smith traced the lines from John Dewey’s philosophical pragmatism, which viewed history as irrelevant to rational analysis of the present, to abortion via its conquest of the classroom:
School prayers and controversies about after-school Bible studies on campus are merely popular dis tractions. The real issue is far more fundamental: Reference to God in the classroom would be a thorn in the flesh of relativism. By their very natures, a God of absolutes and a philosophy of relativism don’t mix. It is not a battle between religion and secular educa tion, but between two different religions: the biblical God of transcendent values, and the secular god of individual choice.13
…If Choice is the God of relativism, therapy has become relativisms established religion. There has been an observable shift from minister to psychol ogist, from pulpit to couch, from eternal judgment to “nonjudgmental,” from divine authority to “self-actualization.”14
…Abortion is a transcendent moral issue precisely because it transcends all religious beliefs and even outspoken nonbelief. Only religious bigotry allows pro-choice supporters to summarily dismiss opposition to their cause as nothing more than the narrow-minded religiosity of the Catholic Church and Bible-belt fundamentalists.15
This was 1990! What about post-June 24, 2022, when the SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade? Indeed, choice is a god. This is why causing the death of a baby in utero, say, in a violent attack on a pregnant woman is criminal, while that same woman choosing an abortion is celebrated—choice, as god, makes a metaphysical and ethical determination. The gods of today are self and state. But we must defend, declare, demonstrate, and delight in our hope that God is God. We do this by remembering the words of the prophet:
Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.
“Listen to me, you stubborn of heart, you who are far from righteousness: I bring near my righteousness; it is not far off, and my salvation will not delay; I will put salvation in Zion, for Israel my glory. (Isa 46:8–13, ESV)
We must pray for the Lord’s grace of the grace of the relational IQ and EQ necessary for meaningful engage ment with those who disagree with us on the issue of life. We must seek to take the question back to God. “Press the antithesis,” as Van Til would say. Keeping in mind that we are interacting at every turn with imagers of God, we must seek to joyfully persuade them of who they already know, namely the very Triune God in whose image they are made and to whom they are covenantally accountable. The Christocentricity of worldview comes into focus here as we segue from the question of theology into the anthropological considerations of living pro-life post-Roe. After all, it is in Jesus, who came in his incarnation to exegete the Father for us, that we might begin to focus on the life aspect of pro-life as more than a mere commodity to be pawned in political debate. The fact that Christmas is just weeks away only amplifies the hope we are seeking defend as we defend unborn life. For, indeed, God did become like one of us, to give us everlasting life. To live pro-life post-Roe is uniquely theological, because it is a commitment to living coram Deo—before God as God.
Anthropology is more than the study of skull fragments. It is the question of what it means to be human. Are we, as neo-atheist, Sam Harris claims, simply “bio-chemical puppets?” Are we just accidental disconnected bags of biology? Or are we gloriously created from the moment of conception as imagers of the one true God?
In a recent episode of The Dr. Phil Show, Lila Rose (of Live Action, a pro-life ministry) fielded questions from the show’s ever-authoritative host, an array of aggressive fellow guest panelists, and an antagonistic audience. One of the guests insisted that Lila was dismissive of fourteen-year-old rape victims by demanding that the victims carry “the clump of cells,” that isn’t even a child, to term.
If it sounds dehumanizing to call an unborn baby just a “clump of cells,” that’s because it is. But it is more than dehumanizing, it is “ de-humaning.” Given the number of abortions performed while Roe was upheld, it is certain that America has experienced a significant (63-plus mil lion) de-humaning, an eradication of humans from the population. This can only be tolerated if an unbiblical an thropology has won the day in the marketplace of ideas. Abortion is very much a matter of one’s anthropology, and Satan is quite interested in the subject. He hates God but can do nothing to thwart him. So, he targets the next best thing—the image of God in humans.
How do we meaningfully engage with our friends and loved ones who may disagree with a pro-life position because they don’t believe an unborn baby is actually a human life? Well, again, given Christmas is around the corner, living pro-life post-Roe could involve an appeal to consider the incarnation of Christ. The annunciation narratives in the gospels only speak of the child within Mary’s womb to be personal, human, holy, and living from the moment of conception. Advent is the answer to abortion, as the incarnation affirmed the reality and worth of life in the womb, as Christ came as the most vulnerable helpless babe. Jesus took on our physicality, affirming and redeeming it. We must engage others in the
We are called to demolish, not people, but the pretensions that keep people in bondage— worldviews that are raised against the knowledge of God.
world of shame with a Christocentric anthropology, as in Heb 2:10–18, our unashamed Elder Brother, made like us in every way, came to destroy him who hold the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all of us, who through our fear of death, were held in lifelong slavery.
So, to live pro-life post-Roe is uniquely anthropological, as we insist that an unborn baby is not just a clump of cells, but a unique creation and an image of God. Yes, caught in the fallout of the fall. But that is why that Christmas Babe was born—come to earth, as the old carol says, to taste our sadness.
The question of how we know what we know is ultimately a question of authority. From the point of view of covenantal apologetics, our approach to knowing is revelational. Our knowing is analogous to God’s comprehensive, independent, all-determinative knowing. The Creator authoritatively defines his creation at every point.
When questions about when life begins arise, we need to be aware that the pro-abortion position is not, by its very own definitions, seeking to submit to scrip tural categories of humanness, of life in the womb, etc., because for them the self has become epistemologically determinative. This is seen when the widely presupposed hegemony of scientism (note: scientism, not science) is appealed to settle the question of when life begins. The effort is to show that scientists are not all in agreement about when life begins, so abortion must be legally, widely, and safely accessible with no restrictions. How ever, when science is presented, revealing overwhelming consensus on life beginning at conception, science is simply ignored. This is because science is not the true principium. Self is.
In the episode of The Dr. Phil Show I referenced earlier, Dr. Phil—who presents himself as a man of logic and science, a man of evidence-based research—insisted that the scholarly literature suggests scientists really don’t know when life begins. Lila Rose readily informed him that this is not the case, as 96% of embryologists agree that life begins at conception. He replied that this does not mean life begins at conception. So, he insists the scientific literature must be followed… until, of course, it contradicts his opinion.
If self is the true principium, the true starting point
of epistemology, truth cannot be sustained. To deny the Bible’s authority on such a matter as life, is to leave one with both feet planted firmly. . . in mid-air. For, with the principium of self as epistemological foundation, the very self that insists upon an appeal to the authority of sci ence, has no way to account for the inductive logic or the normativity of nature upon which said appealed-to sci ence depends. However, the Bible accounts for these pre conditions of intelligibility. If someone were to say that the Bible can’t be trusted historically, then that person must first be asked by what standard they judge Scrip ture. Secondly, they can’t then appeal to the supposedly historically untrustworthy Bible to insist that Jesus did not speak to the issue of abortion. Just as Pilate ironically asked the question, “What is truth?” when the very Truth was standing in from of him (John 18:38), so autonomous human reasoning stands Pilate-like before Jesus, pretend ing truth is not absolute and obligatory in the matter of abortion. To live pro-life post-Roe is uniquely an episte mological issue, as we are advocating for epistemological self-awareness in the very question of truth.
Cornelius Van Til was rarely without his chalk. When he wasn’t flicking it at slumbering stu dents, he used it to sketch his familiar circles— one large, one small, with a pair of lines connecting them. It was a visualization of the Creator/creature distinction. The process of differentiation between God and his creation was central to his metaphysic. God is God, and we are not.
Metaphysics deals with the nature and reality of exis tence. Is it material? Is it spiritual? Is it both? A biblical metaphysic insists reality is both material and spiritual. While this is not often discussed, even by Christians, in the debate over abortion, proponents of abortion are making a significant metaphysical assumption—abortion is purely a physical act, as there is no non-physical person being eradicated. This is creates a problem in that the question of personhood necessitates acknowledging the metaphysical duality of the physical and non-physical. Otherwise “personhood” is a meaningless concept. For those who defend abortion up to birth, the assumption is personhood is related to a stage of development (i.e., having exited the birth canal and umbilical cord cut). However, in such a position, how does the physical
location outside the womb determine the state of one’s non-physical personhood?
This is the question that left Joe Rogan without an answer in a recent episode of his podcast with pro-life advocate Seth Dillon of The Babylon Bee.16 Although Rogan mocked the idea of conception as a “miraculous event,” he could not answer Dillon’s challenge to account for how stage of development determined valuable humanness.
The subjectivism involved in the metaphysics of the pro-abortion position can never actually say when it is wrong to end a life. If a proponent of abortion says that after a certain number of weeks, abortion is the ending of human life, and should not be allowed, say, a late term abortion, what reality sealed the humanness of what previously just a developing clump of cells? If a proponent of abortion believes the procedure should be allowed up to the point of birth, what metaphysically mitigates against infanticide after the baby is born? By what standard is personhood, which is not material in nature, conferred? Can physical location (i.e., inside or outside the womb) confer humanness, personhood, a soul?
This, obviously, is closely related to the question of anthropology, as all the pieces of the worldview puz zle are distinguishable, but not divorceable. Does man determine the nature of reality? Assuming the right to determine reality by fiat declaration that one is or is not actually human is a metaphysical move. To live pro-life post-Roe is also a matter of the metaphysical. It is a rec ognition of the Creator/creature distinction in answer to the question of the nature of reality.
Ethics does not exist apart from the other pieces of the worldview puzzle. A covenantal apologetic, which asks, “By what standard?” in the realm of epistemology, for instance, does so as well in that of ethics. Ethics is a matter of statistics, culture catechizes us, and might makes right. This is often best seen in marketing. Allure recently posted an article in which they linked to the Don’t Ban Equality project, for which hundreds of corporations and companies signed a petition declaring abortions rights as a justice issue. These companies publicly committed themselves to support abortion rights in their policies for their employees and in their charitable efforts around the world. Being a
glamour magazine and website, Allure asked 108 cos metic companies just what they were doing to join the cause. They posted the responses, so their readers could know just how in-line these cosmetic companies were with the pro-abortion agenda. The message was clear—if your favorite makeup brand is not on this list, they are perpetuating injustice.
Of course, corporate ethics in these matters isn’t always borne out of altruism. It is more cost effective for companies, like Dick’s Sporting Goods, to pay travel expenses for an employee’s out-of-state abortion, than to provide maternity leave in most cases. It is particularly chilling that cosmetic companies are so committed to abortion, given the use of fetal tissues in cosmetic research and development and even in products such as Neocutis’ anti-wrinkle creams. This in an industry that heralds products manufactured without cruelty to animals.
I recently spoke with a member of my men’s Bible study, who has been faithfully serving in a pro-life min istry that arrives at the Planned Parenthood in Nashville early each morning to witness to Christ and counsel people showing up seeking abortions. They point them to myriad resources churches and ministries in the Nash ville and surrounding areas offer for women facing an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy. There will always be more ways the Church needs to serve those in need. But the work of my friend, and thousands like him, is simply ignored in the rush of evangelical leaders to exhort us not to celebrate Dobbs too much. The sheer data on all the resources and aid faithful Christian churches and organizations have provided to prevent abortions and support mothers who choose life simply doesn't support their premise. This kind of virtue-signaling is, by and large, a sanctimonious shibboleth.
It is only a biblical ethic that can account for why life matters at all—the life of a pregnant mother, or the life of the unborn child. Any approach to the issue of abor tion that is not grounded in a biblical ethic has given up the transcendent basis for human rights, and makes all human beings expendable. If God is acknowledged, then so must be his law. If God is denied, then we are all just clumps of cells, inside or outside the womb. To live prolife post-Roe is to delight in the law of the Lord (Ps. 1:2), and to display the light of that law, that all may see its beauty. Indeed, we are to be the welcoming committee, as Hope Defenders. We are also to be the wrecking crew,
as we challenge non-Christian worldviews to give an account for any moral position apart from the transcen dent standard of God’s law.
CFitzsimons Allison says that a hallmark of heresy is the desire to escape basic humanity. Heresy is cruel. Abortion is a true expression of atheism, whether or not a person seeking or support ing abortion is actually an atheist, for it is a denial of the lordship of the Lord of life across all the pieces of the worldview puzzle. The same Lord of life who came to destroy the last enemy: death (1 Cor. 15:26). To be a Christian apologist is to be a Hope Defender. Ours is an eschatological hope, an eschatology that touches the past, present, and future. Resurrection reality and the promise of eternal life is the indicative for the imper ative of living pro-life post-Roe. Can it be said more beautifully than this:
Yet the gift is in order to the task. The example is also meant to be a sample. Christ walks indeed a cosmic road. Far as the curse is found, so far his grace is given. The Biblical miracles of healing point to the regeneration of all things. The healed souls of men require and will eventually receive healed bodies and a healed environment. Thus there is unity of concept for those who live by the Scriptural promise of comprehensive, though not universal redemption. While they actually expect Christ to return visible on the clouds of heaven, they thank God for every sunny day. They even thank God for his restraining and supporting general grace by means of which the unbeliever helps to display the majesty and power of God. To the believer the natural or regular with all its complexity always appears as the playground for the process of differentiation which leads ever onward to the fullness of the glory of God.17
To live pro-life post-Roe is to follow Jesus on that cosmic road, patiently and diligently fighting the good faith. And, until his walk of that road and the reverse of the curse is complete, we will pray and work toward every abortion clinic in this country becoming a pregnancy support center.
1 C. FitzSimons Allison, The Cruelty of Heresy: An Affirmation of Christian Orthodoxy, (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 1994), 17.
2 Joe Scarborough, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx8HN CJTztM, accessed, Sept 16, 2022.
3 Dobbs has hit hard in Tennessee, with one woman recently telling the Tennessean newspaper she is leaving the state because of it.
4 Rev. Jes Kast, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/05/progressive-christians-abortion-jes-kast/590293/, accessed Sept 16. 2022.
5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx8HNCJTztM&t=372s (accessed 09/22/2022)
6 Star Parker, Policy Report: The Effects of Abortion on the Black Com munity, Center for Urban Renewal and Education, https://www. congress.gov/115/meeting/house/106562/witnesses/HHRG-115JU10-Wstate-ParkerS-20171101-SD001.pdf, accessed Sept 16, 2022. Henceforth, Policy Report
7 Jeff Diamant and Besheer Mohamed, What the data say about abortion in the U.S., https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank /2022/06/24/what-the-data-says-about-abortion-in-the-u-s-2/, accessed Sept 17. 2022.
8 Policy Report, 3.
9 G.K. Chesterton, “Heretics,” in The Complete Works of G.K. Chester ton vol. 1, ed. David Dooley (San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 1986, 41.
10 James Orr, The Christian View of God and the World as Centering in the Incarnation (New York: Anson D.F. Randolph, 1893).
11 https://thestateoftheology.com/?utm_medium=instagram& utm_source=linktree&utm_campaign=2022+results+now+ available%3A+the+state+of+theology
12 James Orr, The Christian View of God and the World as Centering in the Incarnation (New York: Anson D.F. Randolph, 1893), 4.
13 F. LaGard Smith, When Choice Becomes God (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1990), 29.
14 Ibid., 30.
15 Ibid., 61.
16 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HguJsfGt67s (Accessed 09/22/2022)
17 Cornelius Van Til, “Nature and Scripture,” in The Infallible Word: A Symposium by the Members of the Faculty of Westminster Theologi cal Seminary, ed. N. B. Stonehouse and Paul Woolley (1946; repr., Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2002), 271-72.
David O. Filson is Adjunct Professor of Apologetics at Westminster and Director of Alumni Engagement.
This book . . . shows how every point of theology can make God’s servants more helpful, holy, and happy.”
—Joel R. Beeke, President, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary
“While we have always known Dr. Robertson to be a whole-Bible theologian, it is impossible not to be in awe of the fact that . . . he now offers us [this book]. . . . It is a remarkable achievement, fitly crowning a life of deep devotion to Christ, the Scriptures, the church, and his students— and all soli Deo gloria.”
—Sinclair B. Ferguson, Reformed Theological Seminary
The legacy of Westminster Theological Seminary encompasses the public concerns of faith and morals. The tradition of Reformed and Pres byterian theologians and pastors who led in this way include such luminaries as John Witherspoon, Abra ham Kuyper, and Westminster’s founders: J. Gresham Machen, John Murray, and R. B. Kuiper. Machen addressed the impact of government encroachment in his day. He wrote:
No interference is resented today, no menace to family life, no government monopoly, if only it be thought to confer physical benefits. Why is
the healthy hatred of being governed, formerly so strong in the American people gradually being lost? 1
He asserted that this “had its roots in a fundamental deterioration of the American people. . . the people has come to value principle less and creature comfort more; increasingly it has come to prefer prosperity to freedom.” Public theology, then, has been a concern at Westminster throughout my service at the seminary, beginning in 2005. I have often had the opportunity to address the issues of the Christian’s and the church’s privileges, duties, and opportunities in the public arena.
During the last few years, the discussion of these concerns has become more intentional due to several influences:
• The urging of Board members, and alumni
• Donor support for Westminster’s Real State of the Union Conferences
• Global questions from donors and friends of the seminary as to the seminary’s stance on cultural issues impacting the church
• Growing opposition to historic Christian positions in academia, media, and government
• Overt hostility to Christian teaching evident in efforts to truncate the freedom of speech and of the press through so-called politically correct speech norms and the misapplication of hate speech laws
Additionally, the matter of public theology at Westminster was greatly clarified by our concern to maintain our position on the sanctity of life in the face of the pro-abortion demands of the Affordable Care Act. Our consciences compelled the seminary to go to court. In deed, we went to the court, all the way to the US Supreme Court, and by God’s kindness, we ultimately prevailed.
In the last seven years, various Westminster meetings, documents, and discussions have explored the concept of the seminary’s role in engaging public theology through preaching, leadership, and theological considerations of the issues raised in public theology. This has now offi cially found a home in our program, Framework: Public Theology from Westminster
Among American Presbyterians, there has been, I believe, a misunderstanding of the Bible’s teaching concerning the spirituality of the church. When this concern is overly emphasized, it has the potential to disconnect the church from the culture so that the church becomes an island separated from cul ture, resulting in what could almost be viewed as a form of pietistic isolationism.
To engage the culture seems inescapably important today as weighty challenges face students when they prepare for ministry in this time of cultural chaos—the
melding of world cultures by technology, the rise of ideologies that oppose Christian faith such as secularism and Islam, and the ubiquity of non-biblical media and governmental influences. Furthermore, theology devel ops today in a milieu of politically correct speech that rejects and even strives to silence what is unacceptable to sound theological commitments.
As a specific example, “Statism” asserts that the supremacy of government is the highest good and that it ought to be seen as the ultimate standard for societal good. The Leviathan of an all-encompassing state is a common tenet of atheism. If there is no God, then government is the only transcendent point in life. Without God, government becomes god. But this is a direct chal lenge to the notion of freedom, and more specifically as it impacts ministry, a direct challenge to religious liberty. Earlier generations of American leaders proclaimed, “A government that’s big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.”
These realities were previously less obvious and hence less addressed in the traditional seminary curriculum. To appreciate why, consider the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor. Students today are studying at the con clusion of a long cultural process in the West that has moved from faith to unbelief. Taylor describes this intellectual movement, echoing language from Augustine.
There was once a time when it was impossible to not believe—the Medieval and Reformation worlds.
Then there was a time when it was possible to believe or not to believe—the Post-Reformation modern world.
Now the time has come when it is not possible to believe—the post-Christian secular world.
We can observe the reality of this third intellectual era, the one we occupy now, in the changes that have occurred in corporate America. Thirty years ago, if a person was identified as homosexual, he would lose his job. Today, if a person identifies another as a homosexual, that person will lose his job. The once celebrated call for tolerance has morphed from merely accepting the divergent to an unyielding non-tolerance of any disagreement. Tolerance has become unidirectional.
Students prepare for ministry in a time of unbelief marked by accelerating hostility to the Christian faith, witness, and activity in the world. Three stages have been
identified to mark the escalating assault on Christians.
The first stage is the loss of privilege and prestige. This occurs through marginalization and non-recognition.
The second stage is the loss of position and power. The person impacted by this is deemed unqualified to lead.
The third stage is the onset of ostensible persecution. This happens through assault on property, reputation, association, and ultimately even physical well-being or life itself.
These three stages have been memorably summarized as (1) the loss of one’s privileges, (2) the loss of one’s job, and (3) the loss of one’s head.
Moreover, students are studying at a time when there has been a new sexual revolution, but one far different in nature than the sexual revolution of the twentieth century. The cultural change today has been a shift from the earlier pragmatic sexual revolution calling for tolerance of individual lifestyle choices to what is today an authoritarian insistence on the recognition of, celebration, and participation in sexual expression, or otherwise face a totalitarian-like imposition of punitive ostracism and silencing.
Historically, fascism was an authoritarian insistence on compulsory conformity. Totalitarianism, however, does not seek mere conformity, but rather pursues the defeat, and even destruction of, any view that is in consistent with its own. It is not the fascist desire for acquiescence that the totalitarian seeks, but the absolute embracing and celebration of the totalitarian’s values and practices—or else.
And so history and previous cultural values do not matter. Examples are replete: taste has triumphed over truth; psychology has trumped propositions; gender is a matter of decision, not DNA; personal offense is now the higher authority—including at prestigious Ivy League Law Schools. Free speech and First Amendment rights are offensive to the new hegemony of self-gratification expressed preeminently through sexuality.
This all fits into the agenda of Marxist ideology, but in a newer form. When classic Communism failed in the West, Marxists in the “Frankfurt School” developed a po litical philosophy often known today as “Cultural Marx ism” developed by philosophers such as Herbert Marcuse
and Antonio Gramsci. Cultural Marxism does not focus on the classic Marxist economic struggle. Rather, its concerns are the struggle over cultural values.
Christians and citizens alike are all too often un aware of the cultural Marxist methodology. When social ist ideology assaults a culture shaped by the Reformation and the Judeo-Christian tradition, its main enemies are the Church and the Family. To put it another way, Abraham Kuyper’s emphasis on the sphere sovereignty of family, church, and state is collapsed into the absolute sovereignty of only the state. The undermining, margin alization, or destruction of the family and the church enable the absolute totalitarian state and its culture to prevail. Without the family and the church, the state reigns supreme and seeks its ever-increasing growth as the only god a secular world can know.
Further, in the Marxist conception of revolution, there is always the revolutionary overthrow of the op pressor by the oppressed. When this power move occurs, there will not, however, be an equitable redistribution of rights as might be expected in the moral understandings of the Western tradition shaped by Judeo-Christian values of equity and human dignity. Instead, the conqueror possesses by absolute revolutionary victory all rights, and distributes them as he alone deems best.
This is in contradistinction to historic Judeo-Christian ethics that honors the rights of all individuals as those created in the imago Dei, the self-determined application of the conqueror’s power is the only rule of justice. In the Marxist view of revolution, such a use of power to establish the interest of the victor over the vanquished is not tyranny but is simply the triumph of justice. This was true in the Communist victory over the Czars of Russia. This is true in the contemporary homosexual triumph over classic American cultural mores. This is the triumph of what the Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci described as the “long march through the institutions.”
Thus, the new hegemony of homosexuality and the LGBTQ movement does not celebrate tolerance, but insists on the complete revolutionary control over the vanquished. The attorney for the gay marriage debate stood on the Massachusetts’ Supreme Court’s steps when the first victory was won several years ago and in essence declared, “Let it be known that from this time forth, sexual liberty will always triumph over religious liberty.” Indeed, the will to power now triumphs over the will of “We the People.”
A simple summary of the key concepts for cultural change to advance Marxist ideals includes:
• Politically correct speech that limits the force of words
• Critical theory such as critical race theory
• Cultural pessimism that encourages devaluing one’s own country and its heritage
• Sexual redefinition that rejects the traditional fam ily as seen in the omnipresent letters LGBTQ
What will happen to seminary graduates when they begin to minister in the con texts outlined above, and do not advance or cherish the expected norms of what has been mandated by cultural Marxism? Will they be equipped to face the regulatory state whose finger is already in the pulpit’s Bible declaring that a passage on homosexuality cannot be preached without incurring the ire of the state and allegations of hate speech? Are young pastors ready to face the litany of obstructions that are likely to arise in the near or distant future, such as the loss of zoning priv ileges, the loss of tax exemption, the refusal to accredit the church’s school, the refusal to allow the church to use public facilities and public property, the restriction of speech in public and perhaps even private space, the mandate to perform same-sex marriages, the requirement to have gender-neutral bathrooms and locker-rooms? We believe that pastors will be well equipped for these chal lenges by their public theology training at Westminster.
Students must be trained to preach gospel-satu rated sermons that also pointedly confront unbelief and cultural and governmentally mandated sinful behavior. And as they engage in the debates of a morally declining culture and address the state, they must not lose the gos pel for politics. They need the confidence to preach on “controversial” issues directly from Scripture, knowing that they may well face opposition to their message both from within and from outside the Church.
We must train them effectively so that they will not simply make a quietistic retreat to a pietism that never speaks of the world’s assaults on the Church. Such a view of the spirituality of the Church places personal safety or comfort before one’s calling to be salt and light in a fallen world.
Given Westminster’s commitment to public theology, I
conclude by clarifying what public theology means for our ministry to train specialists in the Bible to proclaim the whole counsel of God for Christ and His global church:
Public Theology is an outgrowth of Biblical and Sys tematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary Public theology can be an ambiguous term. By theology, we mean the teaching of Scripture, God’s Word, as it is developed historically, systematically, and biblical-theo logically, and as it is informed by our confessional standards. By public, we mean not just the public seminary community and our constituent churches and organiza tions, but also the broader world, whether believing in Christ or not, often termed the “public square,” or the sphere of free speech and the free press.
Public Theology is not a code word for partisan politics. At Westminster, public theology is not a code word for political activity or partisan politics. Rather, it is the recognition of what has been called the declarative power of the church through its proclamation of God’s Word through pulpits, publications, and courts.
Public Theology is historically rooted in Westmin ster’s heritage. Public theology has been best summarized in the classic words of one of Westminster’s founding professors, John Murray. The following is excerpted from Murray’s article, “The Relationship of Church and State.”2 It is an excellent balance of the church’s proclama tion of biblical moral principles in light of public issues touching family, church, and state. He writes,
To the church is committed the task of proclaim ing the whole counsel of God and, therefore, the counsel of God as it bears upon the responsibility of all persons and institutions. While the church is not to discharge the functions of other institutions such as the state and the family; nevertheless it is charged to define what the functions of these insti tutions are, and the lines of demarcation by which they are distinguished. It is also charged to declare and inculcate the duties which devolve upon them. Consequently when the civil magistrate trespasses the limits of his authority, it is incumbent upon the church to expose and condemn such a violation of his authority. When laws are proposed or enacted which are contrary to the law of God, it is the duty of the church to oppose them and expose their iniquity. When the civil magistrate fails to exer cise his God-given authority in the protection and
promotion of the obligations, rights, and liberties of the citizens, the church has the right and duty to condemn such inaction, and by its proclamation of the counsel of God to confront the civil magistrate with his responsibility and promote the correction of such neglect. The functions of the civil magistrate, therefore, come within the scope of the church’s proclamation in every respect in which the Word of God bears upon the proper or improper discharge of these functions, and it is only a misconception of what is involved in the proclamation of the whole counsel of God that leads to the notion that the church has no concern with the political sphere.
When it is maintained that the church is con cerned with civic affairs, it is under obligation to examine political measures in the light of the Word of God, and is required to declare its judgments accordingly, the distinction between this activity on the part of the church and ‘political’ activity must be recognized. To put the matter bluntly, the church is not to engage in “politics.” Its members must do so, but only in their capacity as citizens of the state, not as members of the church.
The spirituality of the Church is essential for a sound Public Theology. Public Theology at Westminster maintains the foundational importance of the spiritual character of the church without stripping the church of its declarative power so eloquently articulated by Westminster’s John Murray. To distinguish this, we might consider the distinction between what I term the declarative/activistic spiritual view of the church and the silent/inactivistic spiritual view of the church.
Public Theology is an expression of divine grace Public Theology is understood at Westminster to be an expression of divine grace. The exploration of the role of common grace in relationship to special grace is one of the tasks of Public Theology. Our efforts in public theology have no merit in our salvation, but are motivated by the Holy Spirit’s enablement of grateful obedience to God and His Word, the seeking of His glory, and serving our neighbors in love and truth.
Public Theology is intended to prepare students for the escalating cultural hostility targeting the Church Public Theology at Westminster is especially concerned with preparing our students and members of the Chris tian community to respond to the escalating opposition
and potential persecution rising against the church. The public theology program seeks to develop educational content and opportunities to enable our constituencies to address statist views of government that seek to silence and marginalize the church. It strives to provide wise counsel to the church to be effective in the inevitable confrontation of a hostile and secular culture to the life and ministry of the biblically faithful church.
Public Theology addresses the vital issues confronting the church that arise in the public square. Public Theology addresses the growing opposition to the church. It seeks to provide vital biblical teaching concerning controversial issues that confront the church such as Marxist critical theories, the sanctity of life, sexu ality, gender, poverty, racism, and immigration.
Indeed, help us by praying and supporting our minis try to train the next generation of leaders for the Church here in America and around the globe. Consider learning more about Framework: Public Theology from West minster. Framework’s mission is to equip pastors and church leaders by deploying a biblically faithful theological framework to engage the challenging moral, civic, and cultural issues the church faces in society.
We are committed to pursuing public theology—not political partisanship—because we are convinced that Scripture is true and sufficient, and that good theology should be public theology. The urgent need in the church today is for pastors with a clear gospel witness who are unafraid to confront the issues that assault believers. Join us in equipping students and pastors to impact the public square and to prepare their churches for whatever may next come to challenge the people of God.
1. J. Gresham Machen, Education, Christianity, and the State (Trinity Foundation, 1995), 138.
2. The Collected Writings of John Murray, vol. 1 (Banner of Truth, 1976), pp. 253–259.
Peter A. Lillback (PhD, Westminster Theological Seminary) is President and Professor of Historical Theology and Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary. He also serves as the President Emeritus and Founder of The Providence Forum and Senior Editor of Unio cum Christ: An International Journal of Reformed Theology and Life
K. Scott Oliphint, Christopher Watkin, Daniel Strange, James Anderson
Speakers: February 28th- March 1st When: Visit wm.wts.edu for registration info
z Prospective student days are back! If you are inter ested in learning more about a theological preparation for ministry at Westminster, join us in Glenside, PA on October 11 or November 4 for a campus tour and a chance to meet faculty.
z The annual Westminster Conference on Preaching and Preachers will take place from October 18–19, 2022 in Van Til Hall. This conference will equip preachers and church leaders to bring hope in the Word to the hearts of their hearers. Come listen to speakers Albert Mohler, Richard Pratt, Stafford Carson, and Rob Edwards address the topic of preaching and apologetics. For more information, please visit wm.wts.edu.
z Van Til and the Future of Reformed Apologetics. Westminster is pleased to announce a new apologet ics-themed conference from February 28–March 1, 2023. The conference will feature presentations from K. Scott Oliphint, Christopher Watkin, James Ander son, Daniel Strange, and others. We invite you to join us on campus.
If you have a piece of Alumni news or a Westminster story to share, please send us an email. You can reach Davey Fernan dez, our Alumni Associate, at dfernandez@wts.edu.
Dr. Carl Spackman, an alumnus of Westminster, passed away on May 4th, 2022.
z Seminary On Saturday. If you will be in the Nash ville, TN area on Saturday, November 5, 2022, con sider joining us from 8:30 AM–1:30 PM at Covenant Presbyterian Church for “Seminary on Saturday.” The topic will be “Christian Apologetics for the People of God,” and will feature several Westminster Theological Faculty. For more information and tickets, please visit seminaryonsaturdays.com
Jared Oliphint (2005), has completed his PhD studies in Philosophy at the University of Texas A&M
Chad Escue (MDiv, 2022) was recently made Pastoral Intern at Briarwood Presbyterian Church.
Faculty and students enjoying the new pickleball court during a recent tournament on campus.
Joseph Fischer (MDiv, 2022), was recently installed as RUF Campus Minister at Rutgers University
Hunter Jackson (MDIV, 2022) will be installed as As sociate Minister of Elkins Park Reformed Presbyterian Church.
Joel Richards (MDiv, 2022), was made Pastoral Intern in the Missions Department at Briarwood Presbyterian Church.
David Briones David has several book reviews coming out in Westminster Theological Journal and Review of Biblical Literature. He will enjoy study leave until the close of the 2022 Fall Term, completing a commentary on Philemon for the International Theological Com mentary series (T&T Clark).
Stephen Coleman recently preached for the Summer Church series at Leland Community United Method ist Church in Leland Michigan. He also has an essay entitled “The Folly, Mystery, and Absurdity of Sin in the Wisdom Literature,” forthcoming in the volume Ruined Sinners to Reclaim edited by David Garner and Jonathan Gibson.
Brandon Crowe recently completed a manuscript that is due out in 2023 with Lexham Press titled The Lord Jesus Christ: The Biblical Doctrine of the Person and Work of Christ. Brandon is scheduled to give two presentations in November at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Denver. The first is “Studying Jesus Historically and the Dangers of Nestori anism: Is There a Way Forward?” and the second is “The Benefits and Limits of Reading James as Part of a Collection: James 1:12 as a Test Case.” Brandon also appeared on the TV Show State of Independence with Joe Watkins on Lighthouse TV.
John Currie recently hosted a compan ion podcast to WSP’s edition of John Murray’s The Epistle to the Romans The podcast featured Alistair Begg, Sin clair Ferguson, Kevin DeYoung, Harry Reeder, Dick Gaffin, Ren Broekhuizen, and Westminster faculty. Dr. Currie has several upcoming speaking and preaching engage ments as well. He will be speaking at the Easter Shore
Conference on Oct. 21st and 22nd, preaching at the Reformation Day service at Calvary OPC in Glenside on Oct. 30th, and at Cresheim Valley Presbyterian on Nov. 20th and Dec. 11th.
Iain Duguid has three upcoming publi cations. His The Rebel Prophet: The Gos pel in the Book of Jonah will be published by St. Colme’s Press. Ezra-Nehemiah: Rebuilding What’s Ruined, a new volume of the Gospel-Centered Bible Study series, is due to be published with New Growth Press. His Ezekiel in Isaiah, a text belonging to the ESV Expository Commentary, will be published with Crossway.
Rob Edwards recently co-edited a volume with Chad Van Dixhoorn and John Ferguson, entitled Theology for Ministry (P&R, 2022) which was re leased in August. Rob will be a keynote speaker at the Westminster Conference on Preaching and Preachers in October 2022. His topic concerns apologetics and preaching and is titled “Christ-centered Apologetics for Preaching.”
Sandy Finlayson has a forthcoming article entitled “Chalmers: Pastor for the Poor,” which will appear in the upcom ing issue of Unio Cum Christo. His wife Linda also had a new book published in May 2022 by Christian Focus titled William Carey: Expecting Great Things.
Jonathan Gibson has several recent publications including Isaiah: Good News for the Wayward and Wandering (NGP, August 2022), Lamentations in the ESV Expository Commentary series (Crossway, September 2022), and Acrostic of Salvation: A Rhyming Soteriology for Kids (NGP, September 2022). In addition to these recent volumes, Jonathan has two upcoming publications,
namely The Book of Ruth Explained in Twenty-Eight Homi lies (Introduction on Ludwig Lavater) (RHB, November 2022), and Church History Study Bible: Study notes for Isaiah and Ezekiel (Crossway, January 2023). Jonathan recently gave lectures at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, the Sing! Conference in Nashville, TN, and at CCEF’s recent conference where he delivered a lecture entitled “Introduction to Biblical Theology.”
Mark Garcia and his family recently moved from Coraopolis to the Phila delphia area, and he has settled into a new home with his family. Mark has a recently published essay entitled “The Church: The Well-Ordered Church in a World of Distrust,” which was published in Theology for Ministry: How Doctrine Affects Pastoral Life and Practice (P&R, 2022), edited by William R. Ed wards, John C. A. Ferguson, and Chad Van Dixhoorn.
David Garner will be speaking at two conferences in October. He will present “The Mission of the Church” in New Castle, UK, and “Reading Jesus” at the Westminster Theological Seminary Conference in Korea. In November, David will give a presentation entitled “Let the Nations Be Glad,” which will occur at the Westminster Mandarin Conference. Dave has one forthcom ing publication titled “The Gospel of God Concerning His Beloved Son: Further Steps on a Well-Traveled Text,” which is due out in the Westminster Theological Journal
Elizabeth Groves recently spoke during one of the breakout session at the 2022 CCEF Conference, which is titled “The Way of Wisdom.”
Peter Lillback is teaching a course on ethics with Dr. Rob Edwards this semester. In October he will be traveling to Indonesia, teaching Johannine The ology at the International Reformed Evangelical Seminary in Jakarta, along with other preaching and teaching en gagements. In November, he will attend the launch of a
Westminster Seminary Press in Korea program, Reading Jesus. Earlier this year, he hosted a 4-part podcast com panion to the book The Pastor and the Modern World that is available for free online. In 2023 he will be preaching and teaching in Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, and in the Netherlands.
Alfred Poirier has taught 18 hours of theology to a cohort of some 55 students from Ukrainian-American churches. These lectures involved the theology of atonement, election and reprobation, and common grace. Al fred has also been involved in regular preaching on the book of Daniel in various churches.
Vern Poythress published several books in 2022. A new work, Redeeming Reason: A God-Centered Approach, will be published by Crossway in the Spring of 2023.
Todd Rester is currently editing Petrus van Mastricht’s Theoretical Practical Theology (vols. 4–5) with the Dutch Reformed Translation Society, which is due out in the future with Reformation Heritage Books. Todd is also working on two volumes which will be published by Westminster Seminary Press. The first is a critical edition of the Latin and English theological manuscripts of James Ussher, translated and edited by Harrison Perkins. The second is Petrus van Mastricht’s Syntagma on Saving Faith. Todd has also undertaken a research project in which he will catalog the personal library of Francis Turretin, which is currently hosted in France.
Chad Van Dixhoorn has one upcoming publication, Journals of John Lightfoot, due out soon with Oxford University Press. In April 2022, Chad gave the Rob Taber Lecture at Western Reformed Seminary. Chad will be speaking at the Marriage Conference at Bethel OPC in Wheaton, IL, and will give a lecture at Reformed Puritan Theological Seminary and at the Westminster Confes sion at 375 Conference in October.
Editor’s Note: This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Jeff Hart: Before joining Westminster’s pastoral theol ogy faculty, you served as a pastor for thirty-eight years. Can you share about your time as a pastor and how that has shaped your outlook on pastoral theology?
Alfred Poirier: I was converted in 1972, and the man that converted me immediately took me through Ro mans. He had been a Christian for four years, but some body had trained him, and he did the best job he could. It set in motion in my own life a desire to not only share the gospel, but to disciple people in the gospel. That began my so-called ministry as a layman. I served for a year as a college minister with the mainline churches in my area as I was finishing up college.
I took my first position at a church when I was starting seminary. It was an independent Bible church in San Diego that came out of the Presbyterian Church USA. I spent four years there and was able to move them into a denomination. I really learned my ecclesiology and theology there. I was learning theology at seminary and finding its immediate application in the church.
In seminary, I studied not only under men such as John Frame, Meredith Klein, Bob Godfrey, and Robert Strimple, but George Scippione, who was part of the CCEF movement, which was still pretty new in 1984. He inspired me to be a pastor who was a real physician of souls—that’s the language of Gregory Nazianzus, a fourth-century church father we mostly know as a theolo gian, but who was a working pastor. I understood that my call included not only preaching, teaching, leading, pray ing, and shaping the worship and liturgy of our church, but also intensive pastoral care and counsel. Really get ting to know your people and their struggles so that you can love and feed them better—I’ve always had that.
My second church was in Eugene, Oregon with the OPC. It was a place that was, if not antagonistic to the Christian faith, not congenial. The LGBTQ community from 1984–1992 was substantial in Eugene, and we got to
see 1 Cor. 6:9–11 in action. People who were bisexual or same-sex attracted were coming to Christ and the church, being changed in radical ways. It was, as Paul says, “and such were some of you.” That again reminded me, boy, I need to preach, teach, counsel, and care for people.
In 1992, I was called to Montana to an OPC church that became a PCA church. I spent twenty-six years in Billings. We saw that church grow, and it was there that I came into peacemaking. From the get-go, the whole issue of pastoral care and counsel was significant, particularly with respect to marriage. I teach marriage counseling here at Westminster and I tell students that probably 50% of their counseling as pastors is going to be for mar riages. That’s how it was for me. It was quite substantial, and I loved that.
JH: Thirty-eight years in pastoral ministry is a healthy, long term of service. Can you talk about what brought you to Westminster and why you’re passionate to serve here? What gets you out of bed in the morning?
AP: I studied at Westminster California, so I’ve always had high esteem for Westminster. When I came into the Reformed faith, a number of people said, “Westminster.” My DMin in Pastoral Counseling is from here. During my time pastoring, I’ve sent members here.
Around 2015, John Currie called me to one of his churches to do a seminar on peacemaking and we hit it off. When I retired, John asked if I would be interested in
serving at Westminster, particularly to revitalize the pas toral theology curriculum. I wanted to serve under John, who is a superb leader. I also knew Peter Lillback from my time in the OPC and always appreciated his pastoral vision and stance for Reformed orthodoxy.
Coming to Westminster was a no-brainer because of its strong pastoral focus. All the professors here are not only great scholars, but they’re men who love Christ, love his church, and communicate that clearly to students. In Matthew 9:37–38, Christ says the field is white with harvest, so pray that the Father would raise up laborers. To be a little part of that is a great honor and privilege.
JH: At what point in your ministry did you decide to pursue a Doctor of Ministry at Westminster and what led you to pursue it?
AP: In 1992, the first year I was in Billings, Ken Sande was one of my elders. He was starting Peacemaker Min istries, now called RW360. He had been working with CCEF’s David Powlison, Paul Tripp, Ed Welch, John Bettler, and others. In our peacemaking, we realized we needed a strong counseling component.
Eventually, I realized we needed an integrated ministry of reconciliation dealing with issues of the heart. Dennis Johnson, professor at Westminster California, suggested I get my DMin and teach at Westminster California. So, I came here. David Powlison was my advisor. I did my DMin on how to teach peacemaking at the semi nary level and I got to teach that. This is one of our core courses, and I love that it’s not just a doctoral course. You can’t get your MDiv here without taking a course in ministry of reconciliation.
JH: Can you describe the peacemaking process a bit? What does the ministry of reconciliation look like? Where have you seen it make a real difference?
AP: I think it’d better make a difference in your own life. So much of theology, even public theology, is at a stratospheric level, and there’s a place for that. But even tually, you always have to ask, “Where does the rubber hit the road? What does this look like?” It must grab your heart and change you—sanctification pure and simple.
When we think of public theology, the world doesn’t look at, much less listen to, the church because we can’t
get our own act together. I have heard this sad joke repeated even with major denominational heads. They say, “Alfred, you know how our denomination plants churches? We split them.” Biblical peacemaking was less about international affairs, and more like, “Can you get your own house in order?” Peter says judgment begins with the house of the Lord.
Because it changed my life as I started implement ing it in my own marriage, family, and church session, I began to develop wonderful stories of God acting supremely. When I teach here, I tell those stories. Partic ularly, I always talk about getting the log out of my own eye. I taught around the nation with Peacemakers Minis tries. As I did mediations, not only between individuals, but within churches, I saw how these principles devel oped from Scripture work with sibling rivalry, in major church conflicts, and in multimillion dollar disputes.
We need peacemaking at the seminary level because men are going into ministry and most don’t realize the sorts of conflict that will drive them out. The Pew Charitable Trust Foundation and Duke University did a nationwide review of pastors several years back, and the number one reason seminary-trained men left the pastorate entirely is everyday mundane conflict. When pastors are asked, “What one thing do you wish you had learned at seminary?,” it’s conflict resolution.
Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers. They will be called the sons of God.” In other words, we’re most like our Father, when we’re peacemaking. Paul defines his entire ministry as a ministry of reconciliation with a message of reconciliation. So whatever Paul is—a church historian, biblical scholar, systematic theologian—he’s a pastoral theologian at the heart of it. He says, “This is who I am, I’m a minister of reconciliation with a message of reconciliation.”
When pastors are asked, “What one thing do you wish you had learned at seminary?,”
it’s conflict resolution.
JH: It’s hard to think of a church that hasn’t experi enced some form of conflict in recent years over COVID regulations or you name it in the public square. It seems like political divides within our country and within the church grow deeper with each passing year. How can the work you’ve done in peacemaking apply to the way we handle cultural and political flashpoints within the church?
AP: I think at a very basic level, we need to train our people on what it means to be ministers of reconciliation with a message of reconciliation. Our church in Billings became known as the peacemaking church, not just to other churches, but in the secular world. Family Ser vices, for example, knew our church as the peacemaking church. One of my elders and his wife, Jeff and Amy Laman, put together a little ministry on Wednesday night and they publicized, “Anybody from any church, anywhere, that would like to get biblical mediation to solve your conflicts, please come. It’s free.” It was great. They ran a ministry like that for several years.
It’s also important as a pastor to say there are certain subjects we need to talk about again and again. We would have a peacemaking class of some sort every two years. I would weave peacemaking in our worship service. One of the wonderful things about Ken Sande’s work on peacemaking is that he gave very transferable concepts, like the seven A’s of confession, the four promises of forgiveness, and the four (I use five) G’s of peace making. So, when our people would get into conflicts, they knew that we’d counseled them. When marriages were in conflict, they would come to us early on and say, “Help us.” When people within the church were in conflict, they’d say, “Hey pastor, I know you guys do mediation. I’m in conflict with this member of the church. Could you help us?” All our elders and deacons were trained in mediation. We would try to get everybody in the church trained.
Churches have been dividing and conflicted long be fore COVID, and they will be if they’re not taught how to put real feet to biblical principles of peace. Get the log out of your own eye first, then glorify God. Paul says, if you see your brother caught in sin, you are spiritual. You have the Holy Spirit. Gently restore him. Way be fore COVID, when blogs started, Christians looked like they’d never read Proverbs or James about the tongue. What’s going on? Well, I think pastors didn’t address it.
When we think about public policy, and particularly public theology, we need to also think what marriage is. Marriage is a creation ordinance. It’s really the first time where theology is in its most intimately public nature. An individual man and an individual woman face out ward and towards one another, and bound by covenant, create and procreate. By that, they fill, rule, and subdue the earth. In all the talk I hear of public theology, it’s amazing how nobody talks about the demise of the cre ation mandate of one man, one woman, with children. Studies show single parent homes constitute 63% of teen suicides, 90% of runaway and homeless children, 85% of behavior disorder patients, 71% of high school dropouts, 75% of teenagers in substance abuse rehab centers, and 85% of young prison inmates. We have lived thirty or forty years looking down upon fathers. We have, as one person put it, a dad-shaped hole in America. We’ve severed the tie between marriage, sex, procreation, and commitment. When we look at our culture today and say, “It’s a mess”—we made that mess. We said, “We don’t need fathers. We don’t need mothers. We don’t need intact marriages.”
In the church, we’re not talking about the public na ture of marriage as a public good. St. John Chrysostom, the fourth-century church father, says the love of husband and wife is the force that wields society together because when harmony prevails, the children are raised well, the household is kept in order, and neighbors, friends, and relatives, praise the result. Great benefits both for families and states are thus produced. When it is otherwise, everything is thrown into confusion and turned upside-down. Isn’t that amazing?
JH: That’s incredible and certainly speaks to our day.
AP: Yes, and he’s writing in the fourth century. But we think of marriage in the church as a private good. Therefore, we don’t preach it as it ought to be as a public good. I’ve asked our students here, “Who of you are going to churches regularly preaching on marriage and sexu ality?” Nobody, or maybe one or two, raise their hands. If the church is not training their own people, why even talk about public theology? We don’t know what public theology is because we’re not training our own people.
JH: You’ve been involved with Alliance Defending Free dom, an organization doing what it can from a public
policy or public advocacy perspective. Can you tell us a bit about that organization and how you came to be involved with them?
AP: Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) was founded in 1994 by PCA pastor James D. Kennedy, Bill Bright, James Dobson, and others. Many evangelicals got together and realized they needed legal defense. They realized that as we preached the gospel, our First Amendment rights were being attacked vociferously. So, they came together and formed ADF.
One of my elders was asked to come train the next generations. Not generation, but generations. They were thinking a hundred years down the line. Its leader at the time, Alan Sears, said that for thirty years people have shown up in court seeking to deny all sorts of religious freedoms, and nobody was defending our First Amendment rights. So, he did. He also started the Blackstone Fellowship. In 1999, the first year of the Blackstone Fel lowship, he invited me because I had spoken on marriage and brought a Westminster point of view on apologetics. Over the years, the one thing I was called upon to bring home was Jesus’s sexual ethic.
I did that for almost 20 years. I still love their work and I connected Westminster with ADF. They help insti tutions like ours because we’re living in a day where our freedoms are being radically challenged.
JH: You’ve said that Cornelius Van Til, one of Westminster’s founding faculty, and his apologetic method has informed your work in this area. Can you say a bit more about that?
AP: Van Til was very consistent in his Reformed heol ogy. Sin has twisted mankind, so the common ground is not an appeal to reason. We have presuppositions, and we bring that to bear in and discussing, for example, marriage as a public good. Sexuality—why we don’t make ourselves male or female—that is a given. The fall has affected it to varying degrees, but through Jesus Christ, we have wonderful restoration. Grace restores nature.
Understanding that whomever you’re talking to is made in God’s image, the common ground is right there. God’s moral law is written on their hearts and they know it at some deep level. They may suppress the truth in unrigh teousness, but they can’t suppress all the truth, all the time. In Van Til’s language, there’s always borrowed capital.
Even peacemaking you can’t really do without Reformed theology because unless you have a substantial view of creation, fall, and redemption, you are going to have a weakened ministry. Reformed theology that is best expressed here at Westminster teaches us that.
JH: It seems like the way Christians often engage in all the rancorous political divides of our culture is almost
no different than the rest of society. What would you say marks a distinctly Christian approach to engaging the hot button issues of the day?
AP: Well, going back to creation, God is sovereign. If we’re going to “change the culture,” we can’t be Arminian. We can’t think we’re going to do it merely by our own effort.
I think when people get into conflicts with one another, why they stop listening to one another and don’t appeal when they ought to appeal with tears, is because they’re Pelagian. They think, “What’s the problem with you? You don’t see it as I do. It’s so simple, stupid.” We start getting angry with people. But if God is sovereign, and how much more now that we have fallen, it’s grace that restores nature. We must not only bring a message of grace, but the “adverbs of grace” must attend it.
the adverb of grace. And the hope is that God would grant them repentance.
If God is sovereign, if grace really is grace, it’s only a gift of God that any of us come to our senses and a knowledge of the truth. Do we conduct our public theol ogy in that manner so that they may come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil? Think of who we’re up against. Therefore, we have to be wise as serpents, innocent as doves.
JH: That’s really helpful. What counsel would you give to pastors seeking to guide their flock through these tumultuous times?
Going back to Galatians 6:1, if you see your brother caught in sin, you who are spiritual must restore him gently. 2 Timothy 2:24–26 says the Lord’s servant must not quarrel. Instead, he must be kind to everyone—even the angry LGBTQ person or the angry pro-abortionist—and able to teach, not resentful to those who oppose him. He must gently instruct in the hope that God would grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil who has taken them captive to do his will.
If we would listen to that, I think we would carry on our public policy discussions as Christ would have us. He doesn’t say don’t talk about it. Ephesians 5:11 says to have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but expose them. We are to expose them, but how? Going back to 2 Timothy 2:24 and following, we expose them gently. Those who oppose him— that’s strong language— those who oppose him, he must gently instruct. There’s
AP: I think you need to hit it head-on. There are times in the pastorate where we preach through books, but there are times where topical teaching is very necessary. For ex ample, when President Obama came out before Mother’s Day of 2012 and said that he and Michelle as Christians had come to see from Scripture that same-sex marriage was biblical, I immediately addressed it. That Sunday, I said, “I’m sorry, I cannot continue preaching through the book I was preaching, but I must address what our Pres ident has said.” I said, “I don’t want to sound like I’m at tacking President Obama.” What gets me is that I know he has a pastor and Jesus said, “Woe to you.” Woe to you, pastors, who are preaching falsehood and leading people like our President into gross godlessness. I attacked the liberal church that has said the Bible is not God’s word and that the gospel is largely a works salvation.
So, if there’s conflict, or even before there’s conflict in the church, you need to take a passage like 2 Timo thy 2:24–26 and unpack it for your people. Say, “This is what God calls of every Christian.” Just before that, Paul says, don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments because they produce quarrels. Now, there’s going to be conflict, but let the unbeliever do the quar reling. We who are following Christ should be teaching, kind to everyone, gently instructing those who oppose us, not quarreling, not resentful, and with great prayer, hoping that God would grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth. Because our adversary is not flesh and blood, but they have been trapped by the devil.
That’s what Westminster does best. It gives us the tools to know Scripture and defend the faith, and go against those that would tear down the knowledge of God and of his truth.
We have, as one person put it, a dad-shaped hole in America. We’ve severed the tie between marriage, sex, procreation, and commitment.
“Art is surprisingly adept at finding beauty in the paradoxes and tensions of Christian faith, and jazz music is a particularly potent genre in this regard.
William Edgar’s A Supreme Love is a lovely reflection on the ways jazz and the gospel can converse. Edgar offers a welcome example of sophisticated theological engagement with music, without feeling forced. I learned so much reading this book—and discovered some great music too!”
—Brett McCracken, senior editor at The Gospel Coalition
It would appear that I have been around Westminster Theological Seminary as long as anyone else here.
It might, therefore, be useful to note what such a person sees of temporal contrast in the activity of an institution and a faculty that still, I think, considers its purpose to carry on the work of Princeton Theological Seminar as it existed before 1929.
American religious history really begins with the Puritans. Their keynote was not repression, as most people appear to think, but was, instead, the relating of everything to the purpose of God. They intended to build a Christian commonwealth. To a great extent, they succeeded, and England became something of a pattern to the world.
A century later, Jonathan Edwards saw America as the primary scene of a millennial kingdom that would spread its glory over all the earth. His prominent dis ciple, Samuel Hopkins, reinforced the vision, and the idea that America would become a great, powerful, and glorious Christian nation, a pattern for the whole world, spread throughout the colonies.
That vision survived the Revolution and took on new life with independence. A great Protestant republic with Christian principles penetrating its every action was to evolve.
No less a person that George Washington informed the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1790 that “it is rationally to be expected from [all men within our territories] … that they will all be emulous of evincing the sincerity of their professions by the inno cence of their lives and the benevolence of their actions.”
(Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., 1790).
In 1802, the General Assembly adopted a report which said, among other things: “Though vice and immorality still too much abound … yet in general, appearances are more favorable than usual; the influence of Christianity, during the last year, appears to have been progressive… The aspect of an extensive country has been changed from levity to seriousness; scoffers have been silenced, and thousands convinced ‘of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment’ to come… The prospect of the speedy conversion of the Indian tribes appears to be increasing; and the Assembly cannot but hope that the time is not far distant, when the wilderness on our borders, shall bud and blossom as the rose; when the cottage of the pagan shall be gladdened by the reception of the gospel, and the wandering and warlike savage shall lay the implements of his cruilty at the feet of Jesus. Delightful period! When sinners shall flock to the Saviour as clouds and as doves to their windows! When an innumerable multitude, gathered from among all na tions, shall sing redeeming love, triumph in the hope of a happy immortality! When the church shall ‘look forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners!’ …” (Minutes, General Assembly, 1802)
To accomplish this end men joined together in stalwart voluntary societies to circulate the Bible, found Sunday schools and churches, lay down a saturation barrage of tracts, to uproot the evils of slavery, of prosti tution, of secret societies, to build a wall against Rome. Human bondage would be done away. Demon Rum would dry up. Sex prejudice would be eliminated.
The results were favorable enough to give some
substance to the dream. After the war of 1861–1865, slavery was ended. Northerners poured into the South to make freedom a reality.
The moral fervor of Americans seems to have been impressive. Francis Grund, a native of Germany, is quoted as saying: “Change the domestic habits of the Americans, their religious devotion, and their high respect for morality, and it will not be necessary to change a single letter of the Constitution in order to vary the whole form of their government.” (Francis Grund, The Americans in Their Moral, Social, and Politi cal Relations, in Commager, America in Perspective, 75; see also G. L. Hunt, Calvinism and the Political Order, 99)
But for the present, work began on the next stage of the realization of the vision: the elimination of the saloon and the intoxicating beverage. In these excitements weariness overcame the task force that was performing the more important task of working for black education in the South, and racial relationships began to return to an approximation of their former state.
In addition to this dedication of the church to the cause of prohibition, there was the growing emphasis on interdenominational mass evangelism. Biblical doctrine was being eaten away by radical literary criticism, but few paid any attention.
As prosperity mounted after the 1870s, the great dream resumed its sway over the American Protestant imagination. We were building the kingdom of God. State and county prohibition covered more territory, evangelistic meetings drew more people, the impact of Christian principles on social evils began to be noticed. Interdenominational efforts became more comprehensive. The W.C.T.U., the Prohibition Part, the An ti-Saloon League were founded. A little later came the Foreign Missions Conference of North America, then the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. The individual and the social gospels were making America a Christian nation in a finer sense than ever before, thought many unsuspecting men and women in the pew.
Ernest L. Tubeson quotes the late Senator Albert J. Beveridge, about the beginning of this century, as saying:
“God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-contemplation and self-admiration. No. He made us master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigned. He has given us the spirit of progress to overwhelm the forces of reaction throughout the earth. He has made us adept in government that we may administer government among savage and senile peoples. Were it not for such a force as this, the world would relapse into barbarism and night. And of all our race He has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the redemption of the world.” (Redeemer Nation, p. vii).
The first world war and its aftermath began to open the eyes of the Christians in the nation. Peace was not secured. The League of Nations was not joined by the United States. The World’s Chris tian Fundamentals Association reminded all Christians that doctrine was still the heart of the Christian faith. The dream of inevitable advance began to wilt with the deaths of Woodrow Wilson and William Jennings Bryan. J. Gresham Machen sounded a call to remember that Christianity was a religion that did not exist without its historical foundations.
It was in this period that Westminster Theological Seminary was founded. Many convictions undergirded its structure. Some of them came from the experience of Princeton Seminary before 1929. Others were developed by the founders. Among them was the intention to develop and train men for the parish ministry; the conviction that life flows from belief, from doctrine; the assurance that the basis of the Christian faith is the inerrant Word interpreted as a group of historical docu ments; that this basis is indispensable to the continuance of the Christian church; that truth can best be under stood by contrasting it sharply with error; that teaching and library facilities are more important than luxurious or grandiose buildings; that knowledge is an indispens able foundation for the sound practical application and accomplishment; that standards of learning must be maintained at high levels; that the Christian church was founded upon and has always continued to maintain the necessity of a biblical system of truth; that honesty and frankness are of great value in the church.
In the more than forty years since the founding of Westminster, it is likely that the world of the mind has changed more radically than in any previous forty-year period in its known history since the creation. The church and theology have not been exempt from this change. Its beginnings were earlier. C. G. Jung is quoted as saying: “Long before the Hitler era, in fact be fore the first World War, … the medieval picture of the world was breaking up and the metaphysical authority which was set above this world was fast disappearing.” (C. G. Jung, Essayings in Contemporary Events [Eng. tr. 1947], 69; in E. R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety, 4).
It has now been alleged that God has died. The Father is no longer needed. Parently authority has gone. The Son is but a human example who was mistaken about the future. The Holy Spirit is reduced to attempting to communicate in meaningless gibberish.
For more learned people, religion has ceased to be relevant to the task at hand. It is to be discarded as possibly formerly helpful but now misleading at best and
deleterious at worst. Such people see nothing in their world to lead them to believe in God. The shape of the future will be outlined by natural science of human inspiration. Ethical questions are to be solved by mechan ical study of procedures and their results in the world of nature. N. H. G. Robinsons says, “There is certainly no factor left in man’s world that is plainly and unambigu ously identifiable with God or his will” (F. G. Healey, ed., What Theologians Do, 276).
The outcome of these trends is not entirely to be de plored. The dream that America is to be the great crown of Christian civilization and a pattern for the rest of the world is now very difficult to sustain, and rightly so.
The present upsurge of interdenominational evange lism may be temporarily refreshing but its permanent value depends upon how effectively it is accompanied and followed by more penetrating biblical instruction.
The overwhelming, tyrannical ecumenical combines and “trusts” of the ecclesiastical world have lost a little of their self-confidence. It has even come to the point where a few of their supporters have thought that it might show a profit, in the long run, to offer some charity and attention to the evangelicals of the world. Thomas Carlyle said that the French aristocracy thought little of Rousseau’s ideas, but the second edition of The Social Contract was bounded in their skins. Perhaps something like that might inadvertently happen to the ecumenical aristocracy.
Woodrow Wilson once said that “education puts men in a position for progress, but reli gion determines the line of [that] progress.” ( Journal of Presbyterian History, v. 49, 330). Westminster Seminary is both an educational and a religious insti tution. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to consider the prospect for the future for a bit on the basis of what we have indicated about the past. This does not mean that I am about to assume the role of a prophet. An historian is not a prophet, though he is constantly mistaken for one. An historian uses the past as a guide for action rather than for an attempt to read an inevitable future from it. He urges people to action rather than telling them what is sure to happen.
We no longer need prophets in the way in which God’s people needed them in Old Testament times.
Revelation is complete. There are few chairs of prophecy in educational institutions, even in Christian ones. Most pro fessional prophets work in “think tanks,” and their work is usually not trumpeted abroad. But if America is to have a future of promise under God, it must be upon the basis of the eternal principles of the Word and quite different from the rosy dreams of the earlier centuries.
So it seems useful to ask how Westminster Seminary should fit into that future and how it should help to prepare for it. My aim is to be specific and forthright.
Basic to the Seminary’s work is its independence from external control. This is partly a matter of the promotion of intellectual honesty. The institution must itself determine what the application of the Bible and the secondary standards to the problems of the day brings forth. It may not leave this decision to any church, any philanthropic agency, or any regulatory commission. The Seminary alone must determine what the Bible says in any given area. And it must be free to say what its findings are.
There is a further reason why it may not be under church control. A school does not exist for the purpose of developing the spiritual lives of its students. That may be and probably everyone here, including the speaker, hopes that it will be a concomitant of the years in school. But it is the formal responsibility of the church with which the student affiliates himself. Every Seminary course provides material that can be used by the church to that end. That is the objective of the church, of every church that is doing its job. So the Seminary is primarily making the acquisi tion of knowledge possible, and if it is true knowledge, it will bear fruit in spiritual growth.
In presenting true knowledge, the Seminary contrasts it with error. The observer sometimes confuses this with intolerance. Not at all. The search for truth is open to all, and the presentation of honest results is the responsibility of every man making the search. The contrast with error makes the truth stand out; black type on white paper is sharper than gray type on pink paper. Let us continue to make the contrast vivid. It is important.
The basis of the Christian faith as it has been under stood through the centuries is a series of supernatural events which have occurred at definite times and places in the past. They include events such as the creation of the
world, the incarnation of our Lord, his death, his bodily resurrection, and his ascension. Christian doctrine is teaching about these events and their meaning. The Seminary must know how to understand the occur rence of these events, what actually happened, and what is the meaning for modern Christians of what happened. In other words, the Seminary must know securely certain events of the past and know what they mean for people living today.
What they mean includes the outline of the patterns of Christian living. Christianity is not just a deed complete with a title search to a plot of ground and a house in heaven. It is also a set of directions, a series of indications, for living today.
Early in this century, a Cambridge University professor said, “America….for a century past… has repelled the sensitive, the contemplative, and the devout.” (G. L. Dickinson, Letters from a Chinese Official, viii.). Professor Dickinson’s sad words are still true nearly three-quar ters of a century on.
I cannot outline here the details of every truly Christian life. What can be done is to state the basic objectives which are given us by the Word. They seem to me to suffer from neglect rather than overemphasis. There is no aristocracy of inheritance to be found in Christianity. Christ imposes an obligation and it is the obligation of tenderness and respect for every person, tenderness and a genuine concern which is not imperious. It learns humbly, and it gradually builds an aristoc racy of love and humility.
This is an aristocracy of knowledge, but knowledge which arises from experience in its application as well as from the authority of its sources in the Word. Such an aristocracy should be the product of Westminster. It is not a finished product. If its coming into being is understood, it will grow throughout the individual’s life. A Westminster alumnus of thirty years’ standing should be superior in this type of knowledge to the members of the class that graduates today. But that should be true just because of what he learned here and has applied in experience. It certainly will not be due to the mere passage of time.
This course of life sometimes demands a consider able degree of self-sacrifice. That does not mean that
the resulting life will be poorer. It will not be. What it does mean is that the attainment of the brightest happi ness, the pure service of God, has to be accompanied by two things; a different catalogue of values from that of the world, and a proper sequence in the order of these values. That is hard to accomplish because unconscious selfishness is the most universal spiritual characteristic of man. But it can be attained by the use of the laser beam of the Word of God.
In an interesting recent book, entitled What Theologians Do, Gordon Rupp suggests that it is important not to be like the French army, always ready for the last war. He is right. Alistair Kee, in his new book The Way of Transcendence, says that man does not experience the traditional God any longer. The “traditional God” presumably has some relationship to the God of the Bible and, Alistair Kee to the contrary notwithstanding, it is important for their soul’s health that men have a relationship to him. One of the major reasons that they do not is their misconception of God. They thought him to be someone who interfered with, and made irregular, the relationships of his own creation. They misunderstood both God and his creation.
This is easy to say, but how shall God be presented properly to such people? Perhaps they will find that order, love, and beauty cannot be discovered apart from dependence upon God. Perhaps they will find that the universe is not mechanical after all. But dependence upon God comes only from God’s own gracious election and renewal. They will only begin to understand what God is about as they experience his regeneration and are converted.
How is Westminster to contribute to that end? This is no longer 1929 but 1972. When Machen wrote Christianity and Liberalism, he argued that there was a sharp definition of Christianity which was always true. Christianity was dogmatic because it was a message about things that happened. Jesus lived, Jesus died, Jesus rose again. “A Body of facts lies at the basis of Christian religion,” said Machen (46). But those facts have to be re lated to us. That is where the grace of God comes in. He graciously saves us on the ground of what our lord Jesus Christ has done for us.
This is what Westminster Seminary must continue to say as long as it exists. How is it going to say it?
Well, first, as I have already said, the Bible must continue to be the very center of Westminster’s work. Knowledge of the Bible begins with the knowledge that it is a record of creation and redemption.
Many people are distressed today because of the rapid cultural change we are experience, a change which promotes violence, personal violence and corporate and governmental violence. The violence is not new. The penetrating French Protestant scholar, Jacques Ellul, says that “a tradition of violence is discernible throughout United States history” (Violence: Reflections from a Christian Perspective, 89), and he adds, “Violence begets violence—nothing else” (100).
The entire cultural change, however, appears to many to be surprising because we do not understand its origin. Most fundamentally it goes back to the lesson taught by the work of Charles Darwin. Darwin was the person who opened the way for a belief which has now become almost universal, the belief that man is not a special creation of God but is simply an animal among others. In many ways, he is the most advanced, the most complicated animal, but he is nothing other than an animal.
It has taken a century for the basic implications of this belief to be realized but now they have been. A time lag of that sort is always to be expected. So now man is under no special moral laws. He is not now, and never will be, accountable to a God for his conduct. If there is a God he has nothing to do with human behavior. Every human person is free to calculate for himself what will bring him the greatest happiness and satisfaction. He should plan his life accordingly, without any regard to what past generations considered moral obligation. There is none. There is not future accountability. My own self ish interests are the only thing that matters.
Blame for America’s moral decline is laid at various doors, but the nub of the matter is right here. Man is an animal, he should act like one, and he will never be accountable to any higher power. A dog with a big piece of meat in his possession will defend it with violence against another dog who is using violence to take it away. A master may be able to end the dispute, but if
there is no master, it will be decided by brute force. That this is the present state of the American human community.
The disorder of our society is the result of this state of affairs. Our schools acquaint us with natural science. Science has done wonderful things for us within the last century. We have the telephone, radio and television; we use washing machines, refrigerators and air conditioners; above all we have the automobile and the jet plane to move us about the earth.
Scientists who bring us these things do not have to reckon with God, it is believed. They too can build on Darwin’s disregard of God. The scientist is the modern God. He brings results and we do not need God to get them. We can get along very well without God.
We are, then, higher animals who may and should act as animals. We are dependent only upon the smooth development of national scientific advance. This is suffi cient to ensure our comfort and our progress.
Westminster Seminary is compelled to oppose such conclusions. It movies, in doing so, against the spirit of the age. But it insists, first, that on the basis of biblical revelation, we know that every man is born with a basic consciousness of God. Our culture today is covering up that consciousness as thoroughly as it can. But it will not completely suc ceed. It will still be there, and some people will continue to hear it. But we must expect that it will be more difficult to hear than it used to be, and it will also be easier to disregard than it was. The Seminary will continue to remind men of this inner consciousness.
That consciousness is an individual phenomenon, and Westminster Seminary will continue to emphasize, in an age of collectivism, the importance of the individual. We shall come to the collectivities later. First, we need to remember that men are responsible as individuals. The gospel is presented to Nicodemus as an individual. Salvation is not conferred upon a group. The Spirit moves in the individual.
The Reformation is the primary source for the emphasis on the individual. It reminded people that salvation was an individual matter. No longer could ev eryone be assumed to be a Christian. The Puritan party in England was especially responsible for the emphasis
on reaching the individual with the gospel and its impli cations. Preaching was stressed for this purpose. In the Puritan churches of Massachusetts Bay, communicant membership was conditioned upon a describable individ ual experience of conversion.
The converted man was ethically responsible. If a merchant, there was a fair price for his goods. If a husband, his wife, and children must hear and be urged to accept the gospel. If a farmer, he must use his land efficiently and care for its produce.
Every person was valuable to the progress of the whole. It appears that Puritan influence in England was of importance in developing the freedom of the jury from judicial coercion and in regularizing the habeas corpus procedure.
This emphasis on the individual, his duties, and his rights is biblical, even though the Puritans at times car ried it to extremes. Westminster Seminary will continue it. A human person, by whatever process science may in the future bring him into existence, needs the solicitude of the church, and Westminster will continue to prepare men for that purpose.
Our Lord came to proclaim the salvation of the individual but also the establishment, in a new and broader manifestation, of the kingdom of God. That kingdom is still subject to enemy attack.
In the more than forty years since the founding of Westminster, it is likely that the world of the mind has changed more radically than in any previous forty-year period in its known history since the creation.
These attacks are becoming much sharper as time goes on. It is less respectable to be a Christian now than it was fifty years ago, much less respectable than it was a century ago.
It is the business of the Seminary to recognize these facts, to deal amply with their causes, and to prepare its students to deal with the world and its people who feel the impact of this situation in cultural and intellectual history. It would be an egregious mistake to promise that this situation will soon be changed and that the visible advance of the kingdom of God will be apparent.
There are, to be sure, encouraging signs. Mass evan gelism is still popular; the “Jesus people” are numerous; a few churches show advances in their membership statis tics. Religious journalism is reviving in some instances. Modern media are being used for the spreading of the gospel.
But these are superficial manifestations. The ev idence in depth is to the contrary. The great mass of the churches no longer teaches the system of doctrine contained in the Bible. They no longer have any system of doctrine. Their leaders are superficial enough to be content with a moral system whose foundation is unclear. Some think it should be the Bible; some think it is just the New Testament. Some think it is only Jesus; some consider it to be the early church; some think it is love in abstract form.
With such uncertainty as to the source and greater uncertainty as to the interpretation of the source, it is no wonder then that ethical standards are no longer even an approximation of the Christian ones. It might be more correct to say that for a large section of the educated population of the country, there are no ethical standards in the usual sense. They have been replaced by the stan dard of self-advantage: the thing to do is whatever will benefit me at the moment.
The visible result is apparent in the various areas of life. Merchandise is often not what it is repre sented as being; the promises of people are not reliable in much of the commercial world.
The same phenomenon is visible in government. Con fidence in officials has disappeared. Public statements may not be trusted. The government even hastens the decline of moral standards by official prevarication and
by promoting state lotteries. The evil effects of lotteries were tested and confirmed a century and a half ago in this country. We have moved back that distance in one area of public morality.
One of the clearest signs of the change in the pub lic atmosphere is the increasing public ridicule of God to be found in the press and in learned gatherings and publications. A century ago, in a center of learning like Cambridge in Britain or Cambridge in this country, an evangelical Christian was respected. He might not find agreement among his peers, but it was admitted that he might be an intelligent man and that he could hold both his evangelical opinions and the respect of the commu nity. This is no longer the case. In the most respected communities of learning today, belief in God is not a live option. Anyone who holds to a Christian view of God is suspect. He is believed to be either a hypocrite for personal advantage or a second-rate mind.
This attitude is rapidly being reflected in the maga zines and newspapers of general circulation. So far, the impact is a subtle one, but it becomes bolder constantly. The vocabulary of public speech on the radio and television is another indication.
What is the task of Westminster Seminary in such a situation? It is at least threefold.
First, it must make plain the fact that there have been other periods of great difficulty in the history of the church. In the third century, the church was full of people who, when persecution arose, rushed to deny Christ. Cyprian was disgusted. “They ran … of their own accord” to submit, said he (De lapsis, 8, 9 ).
In the same century, Christianity faced the brilliant and violent attacks of a great philosophy, Neoplatonism, held by Plotinus and Porphyry. It was faced by the great temptation of a scintillating Christian theologian, Origen, who attempted to be a Christian Neoplatonist and whose theology was a congeries of error. Yet he was acclaimed by Christians far and wide. In spite of Origen, the church survived and rejected his doctrine.
The attack of modern criticism, in the second place, must be met intellectually by a better and sounder, and less speculative theology. The errors of modern critical systems must be exposed and a fundamentally Christian system substituted for them. It will not be an entirely
new system, of course, but it will take account of such new facts and methods as are available and use them to the glory of God. It will provide a live option for the vain speculations which have no foundation in the Word of God.
In the third place, Westminster will provide training in the means by which the problems of the Christian in the eighth decade of the twentieth century are to be met. This implies, in the first place, methods which the church can use. There are a great many of them that the average evangelical church has never attempted but should attempt. The Seminary can help to educate the Christian layman who has his college training behind him. He may become a leader devoting all his time to Christian service, or he may be able to relate his job to, more specifically, Christian proclamation. William Wilberforce was a superb pattern of a man who used his political position to advance the application of Christ’s teaching to the problems of the world. He stands far enough away from us to see, in part, how he did it. It took time, but the results remain to the present day. Occasionally we see a Wilberforce today, but they are extremely rare.
The time may even soon come when there will be a need to educate the church in the art of survival during periods of physical persecution. Other parts of the world need it today. America may be there herself within a few years. Preparation is a good substitute for mourning.
We started as Christians under persecution. There has always been a degree of persecution for us in one place or another, and it is highly likely, even in countries where civil liberties are defended, that religious liberty will begin soon to be chiseled away. If the church is forced underground, it must have ready an organization that will avoid the evil of tyranny and dictatorship and yet maintains unity and cooperation.
A system of presbyterian type is probably best calculated to do this. We can observe the evils of leader dictatorship in some of our contemporary cults. In anti-Christian groups, Charles Manson and his power for evil are a mind-searing example. It would appear that in some wings of the “Jesus people,” there is a similar danger. Imperious leaders have been bring ing peril to the church ever since the death of the last apostle. Often benefits and dangers are mixed together, and the one hides the other. The Seminary can help its students to distinguish themselves and to avoid the risk
of underground tyranny as vigilantly as they can avoid disorder and individualistic disarray.
We are, then, facing a challenging future. It does not look easy, and it does not look pleasant. But the world still needs Christ. As Harold O. J. Brown has pointed out in his able book, Christianity and the Class Struggle, we are faced right now with violent struggles. There is the economic struggle, often conducted in contradiction to Christian principles by labor unions, manufacturers’ associations, and the like. There is the race struggle whose goal is not the abolition of races but justice and opportunity for all races. There is the generation struggle in which the tre mendous advantages of learning rapidly and safely from history how to avoid dead ends and jarring potholes are tossed to the winds by shortsighted over-confidence. And finally, there is a sex gap by means of which women are sometimes denied the proper opportunity for their service of God.
There is plenty of work for the Seminary to do to ac complish the tasks which its founders first undertook. It is a hot struggle. But there is also the assurance that the success of the undertaking is not to be measured by the stock market quotations, nor by the applause of the American populace, nor—and this is important—by the dreams of Christians in early America. It is only to be measured by the Lord’s “Well done, good and faithful servant; . . . enter thou into the joy of thy Lord” (Matthew 25:23).
To that end, every effort will need to be made vig orously. But it will always be done under the assurance that, come what may our Lord Jesus Christ will not fail us; for he is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).
Paul Woolley was one of the founding faculty members of Westminster Theo logical Seminary, serving as Professor of Church History until his retirement in 1977. Paul took degrees from Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, and served in the Presbyterian Church in America as well as the Orthodox Presbyterian Church
Icould tell you the story of my Christian faith through a stack of books. An old, yellowing paperback version of the Westminster Shorter Catechism that my Mom helped me memorize before I could read. The Lord of the Rings, read out loud by the fire one Christmas break after we lost power during an ice storm. A Barry Moser illustrated edition of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. My first Bible, a pocket-sized NIV with my name on the front— which lost its concordance and back cover to a teething puppy and yet remained readable and still sits on my desk. Shusaku Endo’s Silence, read during my culturally confused high school years as a missionary kid in Japan. Tim Keller’s The Reason for God. Paul Miller’s A Praying Life. Matthew McCullough’s Remember Death. Bavinck’s Wonderful Works of God. Dane Ortlund’s Gentle and Lowly
way he should go,” and to “tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord.”
We spent nearly three years building Westminster Kids because we’re convinced books remain one of the most effective tools at our disposal to fulfill the com mands of Deuteronomy 6, Proverbs 22, Psalm 78, and Matthew 19. Books that distill rich theology for the youngest minds; books that make big truths delightfully simple, but not simplistic; books that fight against moralism and point to Jesus; books that remind our children—and ourselves—to set their hope in God.
–OSCAR WILDEOscar Wilde had it right: you are what you read. And therefore Christians should be particularly concerned with the books that fill their homes and churches. This conviction is at the very heart of our ministry at the Westminster Bookstore. We believe that books play a profound role in the life and health of the church. But the question remains, why Westminster Kids?
Jesus was not making a new point when he com manded, “Let the little children come to me.” Perhaps this is why his response is tinged with rebuke—the dis ciples should have known better. Scripture had already been commanding God’s people to teach God’s word(s) “diligently to your children,” to “train up a child in the
At Westminster Kids, we’ve collected the best bibli cally faithful children’s books we could find and cata loged them in a beautifully curated new website. We also built a new heuristic tool into the site that will allow you to sort by age, use, and category, along with special con siderations such as filtering out books featuring images of Jesus. In addition, you’ll find a growing archive of free blogs, videos, and audio content by Westminster faculty and staff, also featuring some of our favorite authors.
It is our prayer that Westminster Kids might become the primary online source for biblically faithful kids’ books for parents, grandparents, educators, and caregivers. If you’re looking for some fresh bedtime reading, resources to supplement a homeschool curriculum, or a gift to cele brate a special occasion, let me warmly invite you to visit westminsterkids.com—built to serve you in equipping the next generations with resources that point to Jesus!
“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”
In Ephesians 3:20–21, the apostle Paul encourages the church in Ephesus that God "is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."
By the grace of God and through the generosity of His people, we have raised $45.5M of our $50M goal, and have already begun deploying these funds here in Glenside, and globally, with our online degrees. We are now training hundreds of pastors in the persecuted church. We have launched both our Arabic and Latin American initiatives, training pastors in those regions. We have provided record scholarship levels to our residential students. And we are on the cusp of breaking ground on a new academic center that will facilitate the capture and distribution of our training to the ends of the earth while deepening the impact of our campus and community experience.
To learn more, or to find out how you can contribute an immediate or planned gift to help us achieve our remaining Far Greater goal of $4.5M, please visit www.fargreater.org, or contact Westminster’s Stewardship Office at supportwts@wts.edu. Would you prayerfully consider a gift?
Vern S. Poythress
Winslow Homer, Eight Bells (1886)
Editor's Note: The following article was adapted from a note Dr. Poythress shared with the faculty and administration in 2019. Although this note was not initially intended for publication, Dr. Poythress has graciously allowed Westminster Magazine permission to share it with readers because of the valuable insight into the genesis of Westminster's emphasis on public theology that we believe it provides.
What is public theology? Should Westminster Theological Seminary be involved in public theology, and if so, how? I would like to suggest a possible foundational framework for public theology and pastoral leadership. This framework would suggest ways in which the unique cluster of resources that WTS has inherited might be used in the service of public theology.
Resources at Westminster
Many quarters of evangelicalism would like to engage in a theology related to the “public sphere.” But WTS has a depth of resources that make it valuable to think about what our distinc tive contribution might be. We have a rich theological heritage in Reformed theology. We have a rich heritage of redemptive-historical interpretation of the Bible, and the use of biblical theology (from Geerhardus Vos and his followers). These potentially provide further depth in interacting with contemporary controversies. We have Van Tilian apologetics, which provides a frame work for critical analysis of ideas coming out of the surrounding culture. Apologetics also instructs us on how to communicate with those who disagree. Finally, our heritage in biblical counseling, and its interaction with psychotherapy, gives us one key example of how fruitfully to interact with a cultural issue in a bibli cally grounded way, and not to lose our bearings in the process.
The challenge of starting further back
So how do we proceed? In my view, one of the keys is not to be too narrow with the foundation we provide for our interaction with the world. Public theology is part of a larger whole. It is not going to be done right if we are just reacting to current events or
to hot topics. We want biblical analysis, theological analysis, and cultural analysis as a wider context. Pastors have to present a biblical worldview as a background for specific exhortations.
For example, the biblical view on homosexuality or on sexual identity or on chastity will make no sense to elite culture in the West unless there is a background of a biblically based worldview. God created the world. God created mankind. God created sexuality. God created male and female. God rules history. God has a purpose for mankind as a whole and for each individ ual in particular. The moral law is real. God has spoken in Scripture. The message of redemption addresses the reality of human need with divine, consummate wisdom. And so on.
It strikes me also that, although one of the issues that pastors face is that of statism and church-state relations, the ethical questions are much broader. There is a danger that we would hastily focus almost wholly on the politi cal sphere, to the neglect of other aspects of culture.1
So, what should go into our foundation? It should go without saying that we have as our basis the Bible itself. Subordinate to the Bible, we have the confessional standards of the seminary, the Westmin ster Standards. These are basic. But then what should we think about in addition, as a foundation for doing public theology? I suggest a framework for cultural analysis.
A focus on cultural analysis by itself is not the complete story. I think that it is right that we focus on pastoral leadership. We are training pastors, and they should not be left without resources for helping people to see the relation of the Christian faith to the cultural movements around them, including, pointedly, the pressures that the culture may bring to bear to suppress the gospel and the church. Though threats of removing ac creditation or imposing excessive fines or criminalizing parts of the Bible are fairly new in the West, the hostility of Western elite culture to orthodox Christianity, and with it the attempt to marginalize and suppress, have been going on for decades, even a century. Middle-class people now feel it is not polite to “proselytize.” And that is the West. Because of WTS’s international character,
we ought not to forget the variegated pressures that exist in other countries.
Stimulus: Christian views of how to do history
Now what would a sound cultural analysis look like? My springboard for reflection comes from a book I have just finished reading: Jay D.Green, Christian Historiography: Five Rival Versions (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2015). It struck me that the “five rival versions” of historical analysis that the book discusses can be mapped by analogy into “five rival versions” of cultural analysis (though he may, in fact, articulate seven versions). 2 These versions got me thinking because we don’t want to be trapped in a version of cultural analysis that is not sufficiently Christian and not sufficiently robust. The only way that we are going to avoid an unhealthy dominance of philosoph ical speculation or neutralist sociological and cultural analysis is if we use the full resources of theology. And this includes biblical theology, which encourages us to use major biblical themes in a flexible way that brings them to bear on culture. Such use may take us beyond the superficial level of piecemeal observations based on piecemeal treatment of texts, or general principles from systematic theology. So (no surprise to those who know me), my suggestions about foundations look perspectival. The approaches Green discussed can be reshaped into perspectives. (And, of course, the “neutralist” approach will no longer be religiously neutral, but will focus on common grace benefits in existing secular approaches.)
The Creator/creature distinction is basic. But in our knowledge, the knowledge of Creator and the knowledge of creature go together. We don’t know one except in the context of the other. Because of the unity of knowledge, the following foundational areas are interpenetrating, rather than representing separable boxes. They repre sent aspects of the WTS heritage, plus areas that could be further developed ontologically and epistemologi cally, develop some specific principles for bridging this theology to the culture, and apply these foundations to cultural analysis. Special application of these principles should be made to the relationship of church and state and to our communication.
Finally, we should observe that critical sociology in
the secular world has been largely taken over by Marxist and neo-Marxist secular religion. It is religious because people give it deep commitments. It offers a counterfeit way of salvation. It is a mistake to appropriate pieces out of it, as if the pieces were independent of the religious fervor that drives it. A biblically and theologically informed approach to critical analysis of culture builds an alternative framework, not an imitative framework. Of course, there will be points of contact, because secular critical sociology has no way to be plausible except by counterfeiting the truth. (The example of biblical coun seling is relevant. Biblical counseling is not just “integration” of insights here and there, nor is it an adaptation of a secular framework to give it a “biblical-looking” overlay.)
1 I am not altogether happy about the term “public theolog y,” because “public” might suggest “political.” I looked at the website publictheology.us, and found near the top a kind of subtitle: “Religion | Politics | Culture.” Why is “Politics” the second term in the list? Why does that especially come to mind?
If one of our faculty writes a book, is not the book “public”? So does all theology become public as soon as it is in a book or on the internet? And even before a book or blog goes out, the pastor and the seminary professor are engaging not only with the Bible but at least indirectly with voices outside, including non-Christian voices. Everything has an apologetic dimension. So the term “public theology” could be either too broad (anything theological) or too narrow (a Christian approach to politics).
2. 1. Cultural Study That Takes Religion Seriously (not marginalized as a mere epiphenomenon, as many secularist cultural analysts tend to do). 2. Cultural Study through the Lens of Christian Faith Commitments (worldview--including neo-Kuyperians) 3. Cultural Study as Applied Christian Ethics (moral evaluations and moral lessons) 4. Cultural Study as Christian Apologetics (commending Christianity by observing its cultural benefits) 5. Cultural Study as Search for God (seeing God's hand of providence) 6. Neutralist cultural study. 7. Cultural study as vocation (potentially interpreted as supporting any one of 1-6).
Vern S. Poythress (PhD, Harvard; DTh, Stellenbosch) is Distinguished Professor of New Testament, Biblical Interpretation, and Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, where he has taught for 44 years. Dr. Poythress is also an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).
We are all too familiar with the phenomenon of placing people into racial categories.
News stations and social media never stop categorizing people according to different races. We may not think twice when asked to indicate our “race” on a job or college application, with the options “WHITE,” “BLACK,” “ASIAN,” etc.
Such racialization of image bearers has been divisive and used for power. Are these racial distinctions biblical? Does the living God categorize the creatures whom He has created in His image according to racial categories, based on the various amounts of melanin in their skin?
As Christians, we must “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5) when it comes to the notion of race. Let us now consider from Scripture the one created human race, the one fallen human race, and Christ’s one new humanity.
In his defense of the gospel in Acts 17, Paul says sev eral things about what human beings are. As those who are “very religious,” we are created as worshipers to “seek God” (v. 22, 27). The Lord of heaven and earth made “from out of one man” every nation of humanity (v. 26). The Creator placed into Adam and Eve’s DNA the possi bility of every physical trait, such as the variety of skin, hair, and eye color. Every human has various amounts of melanin, making each of us a “person of color.”
Besides coming “from one man,” we are more importantly from God as His created descendants: “In Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His descendants.’
Therefore, since we are the descendants of God…” (Acts 17:28-29; NASB)
The word in the phrase “ descendants of God,” trans lated “offspring” in the ESV, is different than the usual word found for “offspring” (cf. Gal. 3:16). It can be trans lated “people,” or even “race” (cf. Acts 7:19; 1 Pet. 2:9). Thus, humanity, in this ontology (that is, in our being), is a single race derived from God. We are God’s one created race.
Genesis 1 records that God created different “kinds” and species of plants (v.11–12) and animals (v. 21, 24–25). But God did not create different “species” of humans! The only distinction is male and female (v. 27). What kind of creatures are humans, then? We are God-like: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’” (Gen. 1:26–28). The image of God, therefore, must be our anthropological starting place.
Historically, Darwinian Evolutionists have categorized people based on different species of humans. Since Darwin believed that all humans descended from apes, he taught that certain “races” have further evolved than others from ape likeness. The place where race theorists often start, is putting people in categories of “oppressed” or “oppressor.” Even Reformed Christians can sometimes mistakenly begin their anthropology with the biblical doctrine of total depravity. But first, we must establish that all humanity was created equally dignified in the image of the triune God.
Adam’s plunge into sin on behalf of human ity brought about a singular fallen human race. Adam’s name in Hebrew is also used for
“mankind”—the collective Adamic race: “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man [Hebrew: Adam] was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). Apart from God’s saving intervention, each of us is born condemned and enslaved to sin “in Adam.” Since Adam represented the entire human race, my biggest problem, as a human, is not “white guilt” but the imputation of Adamic guilt (Rom. 5:12).
The oneness of fallen humanity is especially seen at the tower of Babel, where the sons of Adam are united to build an idolatrous temple-city: “And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have one language.” (Gen. 11:5–6)
The word for the singular human “people” in the Greek translation of the Old Testament (LXX) of Gene sis 11:6 is the word translated “race” by the ESV in 1 Peter 2:9. Notice also that the oneness of humanity is linked to the one language which they spoke.
Instead of leaving the one fallen human race in their united self-destructive idolatry of making a name (He brew: shem) for themselves (Gen. 11:4), the LORD in His severe mercy disperses them across the earth, because eventually He will be the one to regather them through the line of Shem (v. 10).
At Babel, God scatters and disperses humanity into what? Although placed before Genesis 11, Genesis 10 assumes Babel (see 10:10). Thus Genesis 10 fleshes out the dispersing of the descendants of Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, that occurred in Genesis 11.
Let’s zoom in on the various words used for the God-ordained differences in humanity, underlined below:
The sons of Japheth: . . .From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations. (Gen. 10:2, 5)
These are the sons of Ham, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations. (Gen. 10:20)
These are the sons of Shem, by their clans, their lan guages, their lands, and their nations. (Gen. 10:31)
A “clan” is an extended familial group with a close blood relationship, often a sub-unit of “a tribe” or “a people” (see Joshua 13:24). A “nation” is a people group made up of multiple clans, referring to a whole population of a territory, often united under a single ruler. The
Greek translation of “nation” contains the English root for ethnicity. In other contexts, it refers to non-Israelites (i.e., Gentiles, heathens, sinful peoples). A “language” is literally a “tongue,” referring to specific dialects spoken by each nation, while “land” is the regional boundary where each nation dwells.
It should strike us that skin color is not mentioned as a distinguishing feature of the various people groups. In other words, the various amounts of melanin resulting in differing skin complexions are not ethnicities, thus they are not biblical categories for human identity. Just as collective humanity as “one people” was correlated with “one language” in Genesis 11:6, so the various groups of family clans who were dispersed by the LORD at Babel are primary categorized by language, along with regional boundaries (lands) as unified bodies of tribes consisting of nations. Given to partiality in our wickedness, the one fallen race of sinners has often hated one another on the basis of God-ordained physiological differences, such as skin pigment. Sinners went from worshiping “whiteness” to despis ing it, and from despising “blackness” to worshipping it. Recognizing the evils of discrimination, our society is now obsessed with “race,” making skin-color-based racial cate gories the standard of “diversity.” But according to Genesis 10 language, my Irish grandmother and Polish grandfather had a “mixed” marriage. This means that almost every church in the United States is diverse, consisting of differ ent family clans, who descended from different nations.
I formerly categorized myself as “white,” ashamed of my skin complexion. Having erased my true ethnic identity as “some white guy,” my African wife helped me to see that the Lord created each of our skin complex ions for His glory—they are all equally beautiful and wonderfully made by Him (Ps. 139:14). My unbiblical thinking had robbed me of celebrating the rich ances try I have as an Irish, Polish, English, Scottish, German American man! I have since realized that “white” does no justice to the richness of my ancestry, just as “black” fails to capture the richness of my wife’s heritage from the Mbundu tribe in Angola, as an Angolan, Botswanan, now American, citizen.
At Babel, the nations are scattered; through Abraham the nations are gathered. To highlight this, the LORD intentionally uses the same
words found in the dispersing of the clans and nations of Noah’s descendants, in His covenant promise to Abraham:
“In you all the clans of the earth shall be blessed.” (Gen. 12:3)
“In your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.” (Gen. 22:18)
At times Abraham’s offspring refers to the nation that descended from him, namely, Israel. At the Exodus, Israel went out of Egypt as a “mixed multitude” (Ex. 12:38). What made Israel unique was the fact that they were set apart by the Living God as His covenant peo ple: “I will be Your God, you will be my people.” What primarily defined Israel in the eyes of God, was not their physical features, but His Name upon them and their devotion to the LORD based on His revelation to them and His glorious presence with them (Deut. 14:2).
The ultimate offspring of Abraham, who would bless all nations with Himself, is Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:16). The living God became human flesh to become the second Adam and create a new humanity, through faith in His perfect life, sacrificial death, and glorious resurrection. All who are united to Christ are His “chosen race” (1 Pet. 2:9). Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus shows us that Israel’s Messiah, “son of David, son of Abraham,” also has Gen tile ancestry with Canaanite, Moabite, and Hittite blood, which He would shed “to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad” (John 11:52).
After His resurrection, Jesus began reversing Babel at Pentecost when people from the various scattered nations were enabled to understand one another’s lan guages, declaring the mighty works of God. Jesus poured out His Holy Spirit for His new creation kingdom to spread “to the ends of the earth,” saving both the Ethio pian Eunuch (Acts 8) and the Roman Centurion (Acts 10). Now, a descendant of Ham and a descendant of Japheth had come into “the tents of Shem” (Gen. 9:27). Biblically, there are two kinds of humans: the offspring of the woman and the offspring of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). “By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother” (1 John 3:10, 12). At the final judgment, Jesus will not
distinguish people according to “racial” categories, but according to whether they are His blood-bought sheep, or unbelieving goats (Matt. 25:32–33).
While we should rejoice in our ethnic differences, our primary identity is found in our union with Christ. In Christ, the new man, our God-made distinctions such as gender and ethnicity become secondary, and the world’s man-made divisions are destroyed (Col. 3:9–11). In an age of identity confusion, I can exult in the reality that I am first and foremost “a man in Christ” (2 Cor. 12:2). There fore, I must no longer view my fellow Christians “accord ing to the flesh”—based on fallen worldly standards—but as God’s “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17).
The Scriptures are not only sufficient for the race discussion, but they are necessary; we cannot rightly make sense of who are without them. Since “we have the mind of Christ,” only the believer can rightly understand people (1 Cor. 2:14–16).
In the end, Jesus Christ alone will receive the glory as the gatherer of His one chosen race, consisting of His people from the biblical categories mentioned at Babel:
“These are the sons of Ham, in their tribes, accord ing to their tongues, in their lands and in their nations.” (Gen. 10:20, LXX)
“Behold, a great multitude that no one could num ber, from all nations and tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9)
Your brother or sister in Christ is a truer kin than those not in Christ with the same hue of skin. Rev. Timothy Brindle (ThM, MDiv, WTS) is the Church Steward and Senior Stewardship Officer at Westminster Theological Seminary, and a Pastor at Olive Street Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Coatesville, PA. He is also a recording artist and author whose music, books, blogs, and sermons can be found at TimothyBrindleMinistries.com. He and his wife Floriana are blessed with 9 biological Angolan-Irish-Polish-English-German-Scottish-American children, including one in heaven.
Westminster Theological Seminary exists to train specialists in the Bible that proclaim the whole counsel of God for Christ and his global church. The whole counsel of God speaks to every aspect of human existence, from the vertical dimension of God’s relationship with mankind, to the horizontal di mension of each person’s relationship to their neighbors. When speaking about how the whole counsel of God applies to these neighbor relations, we are doing public theology. In this sense, public theology is inescapable: we are all part of an earthly polis and must therefore seek the wisdom of God to structure and direct—that is, provide a framework for—our lives within the polis.
Accordingly, in preparing specialists in the Bible, Westminster’s task inevitably touches on matters of public theology. The curriculum must prepare leaders for Christ’s church who are able to apply the truths of Scrip ture discerningly and faithfully to the challenges of the day, whether in North America, South Korea, or wher ever else our students are called to serve. The diagram here represents (though not exhaustively) the ways public theology is emphasized throughout Westminster’s MDiv curriculum.
With this foundation in Westminster’s curriculum, students are then encouraged to apply what they have learned in the context of evangelism. This happens in dif ferent ways, most recently by equipping students, staff, and faculty with a special edition of the Gospel of John that includes a note from Westminster to help non-be lievers read and understand the context of the Gospel text. Distributed in quantity, this gift edition has been handed out far and wide, on trains and planes, in coffee shops, and street corners as we seek to use every means at our disposal to grow the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
By applying Public Theology-conscious curriculum throughout our courses, and by equipping students to share Scripture with unbelievers, we are preparing them for every good work (2 Tim 3:16–17) so that they might be light in the darkness of whatever field of ministry the Lord has prepared for them.
This past June smartphones across the country pinged with symphonic notification of the fall of Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that established a constitutional right to abor tion. Within moments abortion was trending again as the defining political issue of the day. But for so many who believe in the sanctity of life from conception (Ps. 139:13–14) the fight for life had been the defining issue of a generation. The fight for life has been fought for almost half a century, most of it out of the spotlight, in a committed and arduous battle involving the sacri fice of time, resources, and long-term education, with the ultimate goal of defending the life of each person created in God’s image (a tragically untrendy mission in our dark age).
Perhaps ironically, the fall of Roe vs. Wade may have been instigated by the legal procedures brought on by the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010. Although the Act—familiarized as Obamacare—was heralded as an overdue healthcare reform for many disadvantaged citizens, its myriad provisions provided for and mandated employers financially support the elimination of the most helpless among us—unborn children—through use of abortifacient birth control. The burden of institutions to protect their conscience against this mandate served, in some ways, to accelerate the legal drama that reached its climax this past June, a story that the leadership of Westminster Theological Seminary was dutybound to play a part in.
Zubik v. Burwell
Westminster’s involvement in the case began in the Fifth Circuit. Attorney Ken Wynne, on behalf of the seminary, intervened in a preexisting suit alongside East Texas Baptist Univer sity and Houston Baptist University. While each of the schools provided through their insured employee access
to certain contraceptives, they did not include the full gamut of those mandated by ACA, specifically those contraceptives the schools considered to be abortifacients. This opened Westminster and her co-plaintiffs up to a collective $23 million in annual fines for non-com pliance, a financial burden that almost certainly would have ruined them. Westminster’s board had decided prior to joining the suit that since neither the seminary’s independence nor the values outlined in the Statement of Principles could be jettisoned, the only option was to take legal action.1
The District Court found for the plaintiffs, noting that the burden on religious free exercise was substantial and that the government could have achieved the same ends through less restrictive means. The government then appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed the trial court, finding that the appel lees were incorrect in believing that the mandate forced them to affirmatively “facilitate[e] access to contraceptives.” In response, Westminster and her fellow plain tiffs petitioned the Supreme Court in Zubik v. Burwell (2016). Zubik was not about partisan spats over so-called socialized or universal healthcare as such. At stake were grander, more fundamental questions regarding the limits of state power, religious liberty, the Christian sexual ethic, and the place of the conscience in public life. Issues Westminster has been invested in from its beginning.
Providentially, the Court issued a terse (and rare) per curiam opinion kicking the cases back to their respective lower courts. These courts were charged with adjudicating less restrictive means for providing contraception to employees without forcing the employers to affirmatively file a religious exemption claim form. Specifically, the solution proffered by the Supreme Court was that the petitioning organizations contract for plans that did not include contraception coverage while allowing employees to receive contraceptive coverage by other means.
Tounderstand Zubik and its place in religious liberty jurisprudence, the story must begin with the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s controversial majority opinion in Employment Division v. Smith (1992). In Smith, the Court upheld Oregon’s denial of unem ployment benefits to two Native American plaintiffs who had been fired for using peyote—a psychoactive hallucinogen banned by Oregon state law—in an indige nous religious ceremony. The law against peyote did not target any particular spiritual sect, the Court reasoned. Rather, it presented a “neutral law of general applicability.” No Oregonian was allowed to use peyote; therefore, the Smith plaintiffs were not being singled out for ill-treatment. In other words, where laws apply equally to religious and secular institutions (and citizens) alike, externalities affecting religious groups are presumptively acceptable. This standard has come to mean that state law that treats religious activity the same as “analogous non-religious conduct” passes muster.
No animus toward any religion was discernable in Smith, and the state thus possessed a compelling interest in regulating illicit substances. Therefore, no individualized consideration for the plaintiffs according to their professedly religious use of the drug was warranted. Justice Scalia analogized to laws against polygamy, child labor, and paying taxes to argue that religious convic tions cannot be employed to supplant legitimate state laws lest every citizen and “each conscience” would “be come a law unto himself.”
At present, Smith is still a valid precedent for Free Exercise cases, though Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v.Cuomo (2020) and South Bay United Pentecostal Church v.Newsom (2021)—both COVID-19 era religious liberty cases—have cast doubt on the longevity of Smith. More forcefully, in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2021), the Catholic foster care case, which sidestepped Smith on narrow grounds, Justices Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch all advocated departure from Smith and a return to an older standard, namely, where a law imposes a substantial burden on religious exercise, only the narrow tailoring of measures in service of a compelling government interest will survive the challenge.
In any case, at the time of ACA’s passage, Smith was not quite as feeble as it appears today. Back then, so long as laws were facially neutral, non-targeted (i.e., generally
applicable), and not discernably motivated by religious animus, and the adverse impact was merely “incidental, “they [were] presumptively legitimate under the First Amendment. While this has served as the precedent for nearly 30 years, political pushback ensued almost immediately after Smith was handed down.
In response to the Smith holding, Congress, nearly unanimously, passed in 1993 the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a now unimaginable bipartisan law introduced by Chuck Schumer and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Though ruled inapplicable to the states by the Supreme Court in City of Boerne v. Flores (1997), the law was upheld as applied to federal action in Gonzales v. O Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal (2006).
RFRA explicitly
Prohibits any agency, department, or official of the United States or any State (the government) from substantially burdening a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except that the government may burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to
the person: (1) furthers a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of fur thering that compelling governmental interest.
In essence, RFRA revived the standard of strict scrutiny in Free Exercise cases as outlined in Sherbert v. Verner (1963), and Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) over and against Smith—the standard Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch want to revive—but only as a check on federal law.
Jumping ahead twenty years, the battle between ACA regulations and RFRA kicked off with the land mark Supreme Court decision, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014). Therein, by a 5-4 margin tracking along partisan lines, the Court held that private corporations were exempt from the contraceptive mandate because the government had not met its burden in showing that the mandate was the least restrictive means of ensuring employee access to contraception. This was the first time the Court had recognized such religious exemptions for private, for-profit companies—a recognition that the interests of business owners are not limited to profit— and it signaled assent to RFRA’s standard. A substantial burden had been placed on religious exercise in the name of government interest, but, in brief, Justice Alito and the majority found the government’s means of assertion of said interest heavy-handed.
In November of the next year, the Court granted cer tiorari to the petitioners in Zubik v. Burwell, a consolida tion of six lower court appeals, one of which Westminster joined along with Houston Baptist University and East Texas Baptist University. Oral arguments were held on March 23, 2016, only a little over a month after the death of Justice Scalia—Westminster had submitted its brief just a month prior to his passing. With the late Justice’s seat then unfilled, the risk of a divided court was significant.
In the popular media, the appeal filed by the Little Sisters of the Poor—who had initially been granted a temporary injunction just prior to ACA’s passage— became the face of the controversy. The sizeable coali tion united alongside the Little Sisters under Zubik was truly ecumenical: Presbyterians, Baptists, and Catholics reasserted the contention initially raised by Hobby Lobby, namely, that whether or not the government had a com pelling interest in providing access to contraceptives, a
substantial burden had been placed on religious exercise and less restrictive alternatives existed to accomplish the government’s ends.
Notoriously, Protestants and Catholics may disagree on the question of contraception use. The natural end of marriage being procreation, Catholics reason that any disruption of the natural result of marital sexual relations is a moral and even metaphysical corruption of marriage itself. Generally, Protestants demur on this point and insist that the end of marriage and the creation order are not at stake in every single sexual encounter within a marriage. Significantly, however, both parties traditionally denounce abortifacients of any kind, including so-called Plan B or “morning after” pills. That termination of pregnancies, at any stage, is immoral is not the source of contention for most conservative Christians of all denominational stripes.
Embedded here are deep, perhaps unsolvable, theological questions and maybe equally irreconcilable differences between the two sides of the Tiber. But, thankfully, in the cases of Hobby Lobby, Zubik, and their progeny, neither Catholics nor Protestants required satisfaction on these underlying questions in order to band together on the central, animating question of the allegiance of conscience—whether God or state—and to stand together in defense of God’s image in every human life, and at every stage.
1. Unique to Zubik was the question of religious non-profits that were not classified as churches or church auxiliaries. For exam ple, the Little Sisters of the Poor are a religious order that also performs a “secular” purpose insofar as they manage low-income housing for the elderly. This “secular” function, an act of charity, meant that they did not receive an automatic exemption from the contraception mandate afforded to churches at the outset by the ACA. Similarly, institutions of higher education, like Westminster, that cannot be designated an auxiliary to any church were not per se exempt.
Timon Cline is a deputy attorney general for the Office of the New Jersey Attorney General. He received degrees from Wright State University, Westminster Theological Seminary, and Rutgers Law School. Timon is interested in the relationship between theology and politics, especially in their manifestations in New England life.
David Filson, Adjunct Professor of Apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary, recently sat down with Rob Pacienza, a current DMin student at Westminster Theological Seminary and Senior Pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, FL. In this interview, they discuss the vital importance of public theology, the notion that the gospel is a public truth, and how Westminster has continued in the public theology tradition set forth in Old Princeton. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
David Filson: Rob, tell us about yourself and your min istry. How did you come to know the Lord?
Rob Pacienza: As a teenager, I moved from the Phil adelphia area to Fort Lauderdale, where I encountered the message of the gospel for the first time through the ministry of Coral Ridge. We were typical Northeast nominal Catholics. But when we moved to Fort Lauder dale, in the providence of God, God brought my family and me to Coral Ridge. And it was there that I heard the lifesaving and transforming message of the gospel for the first time. In a way, I am a son of the church, one who was mentored and discipled by Dr. D. James Kennedy. I met my wife there while I was in high school. So, she is a daughter of the church, and it is a very sweet thing to be home at Coral Ridge and be leading in this God-given capacity.
DF: I once heard Dr. Kennedy speaking about “Evangelism Explosion,” and he said that someone came up to him and said, “I really don’t like this program of evange lism, and that you do this Evangelism Explosion.” And Dr. Kennedy said, “Well, tell me what kind of evangelism you do.” And the other fellow said, “Well, I really don’t do a lot of evangelism.” And Kennedy said, “I like the way I do evangelism better than the way that you don’t do evangelism.”
RP: That was vintage Kennedy!
DF: When did you start sensing a stirring in your heart for the ministry?
RP: It was during my senior year of high school. I had the opportunity to share my testimony in a Sunday morning
service at Coral Ridge. Dr. Kennedy pulled me aside and asked if I had ever considered full-time vocational min istry. I was honest with him that I had never considered full-time vocational ministry, but that one conversation after the service began a 10-year mentoring and relation ship where he regularly guided me in pastoral ministry, Reformed theology, and what’s become my love and my passion, namely, public theology. With respect to public theology, I am particularly interested in how the cultural mandate gets worked out and manifested in the life of the church.
DF: Tell us more about your interest in public theology. Dr. Kennedy left a robust legacy and distinct interest in public theology. What are some of your own interests in public theology, your own involvement, and how does that color your own ministry commitments?
RP: I soon began reading Lesslie Newbigin and Abra ham Kuyper. I started to fall in love with the idea, which I believe is biblical truth, that good theology should be public theology. Jesus came not only to preach a gospel of personal individual salvation, but he came declaring and sharing the gospel of the kingdom. And so, it’s understanding the reality that Jesus has come not only to be the Lord of our lives personally and individually, but he has come to be the cosmic King. The question then becomes, how does this truth influence and impact all public life?
My wife calls me the eternal optimist. I don’t think it’s a vain or unrealistic optimism, or being overly ide alistic. It is simply grounded in the idea that Christians should be the most optimistic people on the world. We have a message to tell the nations. And I believe that the gospel of the kingdom is the only true hope of the world.
We’ve seen it in church history for the last 2000 years. I shudder to think what this world would look like if it did not have strong Christians exercising their faith in the public square.
DF: Amen. And is that not just at the heart of a thorough Reformed theology? There’s a certain natural segue into public theology, especially from the view of a Van Tilian apologetic. Abraham Kuyper, as you noted before, is important, too. The notion that Christ is the cosmic King appears in both these thinkers. What is your response to this intriguing idea of Christ walking a cosmic road, and the cosmic scope of Christ’s redemp tive work?
RP: It’s brilliant. My only regret from my time at West minster is that I didn’t have the opportunity to attend while Van Til was still teaching. I think Van Til really understood the totality of the message of the gospel. He understood that the curse was cosmic, and that the sin, when it entered the world, affected every facet of the world. Christ came to be the cosmic Redeemer, and Van Til, it seems to me, really understood that in his teaching and in his writing.
DF: As you think about your own ministry, what are some of the areas that you think are of a special urgency for those of us in ministry and academics? What are some of the areas that are of a special urgency as a public theologian and pastor?
RP: I was interviewed by a secular network radio pro gram a few months ago. They asked me what thing con cerns me the most about the current state of affairs in our country. I said that I am surprised by the state of the church. I said that we as pastors and as Christian leaders can’t really control society, the nation, and the media, but we can control the message that’s coming out from our pulpits. And I think we see a missing voice in the public square, namely the voice of the prophetic witness that has existed for centuries prior.
And so, I pray that God continues to inspire semi naries like Westminster to train men in pastoral ministry so that they are bold enough to preach this public truth. This truth really is the hope of the world. The church, as it were, is the hope of the world. If it wasn’t for Chris tians declaring the gospel as public truth, where do we
think the rights for orphans and widows came from? The ending of slavery?
I just think it’s so important in this hopeless age, where the effects of secularism are ubiquitous, to declare this message. But we have compartmentalized our faith, and thus, compartmentalized the gospel. The gospel has now become a message that tells me how I can get to heaven but does not tell me how it brings flourishing to society and how it extends God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
DF: Amen to that. Can you tell us a little about your own doctoral work, and how it relates to this field of public theology?
RP: My project is entitled, “This is My Father’s World: An Equipping Plan for Churches to Raise up Kingdom Citizens.” And the DMin application or the ministry model will involve the establishment of the Institute for Faith and Culture at Coral Ridge. This will be a training center for lay people, not only at Coral Ridge, but God willing, at other churches across north America. It will be specifically geared to equipping Chris tians for this cultural moment, giving a much-needed biblical theology of culture. This will cast a vision for cultural engagement guided by the meta-narrative of Scripture that God created the world and has a plan for history.
I am really excited about the research that I’ve done establishing a biblical theology of culture. The research also considers the historical precedence of Christian cultural engagement from the first century to the present day, with special reference to West minster, of course, particularly Machen and Van Til. Additionally, I’ve really grown to love the writings and teachings of R. B. Kuiper, who taught at Westmin ster in the 1940s and 1950s. One of the more popular quotes from R. B. Kuiper is “the local church is the outpost of the kingdom of God.” I write extensively about this notion, which Kuiper first articulated in 1952. Kuiper maintained that the church today, which is supposed to be the outpost of the kingdom of God, representing and reflecting the glory of God, is thickly veiled.
From this, an indictment against us follows, namely that we don’t look like the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. We have turned this glorious public truth of the gospel of the kingdom into a privatized truth. So really the DMin work outlines historically what the church has been called to, but also, and unfortunately, what the current condition of the church is today. Hopefully the ministry model of the Institute for Faith and Culture can serve as an encouragement and a model for pastors everywhere who love the Lord and love the word of God so that they can not only speak truth into this cultural moment, but also help equip their people be a priesthood of believers.
DF: Tell us what you think about the importance and the place of Westminster Theological Seminary today
for pastoral training for preparing women and men for various forms of ministry.
RP: I think Westminster has such a rich history and rich legacy. In many ways, I think that you can link what is happening today at Westminster, as well as in its founding, to Old Princeton. I think that Westminster, in many respects, is carrying forward the thought of Vos and Warfield. I mean that in the most glowing way, because that Old Princeton tradition is, in my estimation, the most consistent theologically speaking. It is our Reformed covenantal theology that has a sovereign God at its center, Jesus Christ, who is cosmic king and Lord over all. I could not think of a better place to study to do my doctorate work. It’s been a blessing for me to be a part of such a rich tradition and such a rich legacy. The work that Westminster continues to do, raising up men and women who love the Lord and love to proclaim the gospel is public truth, is needed now more than ever.
DF: One final question. Would you tell us briefly about how we can pray for you, your family, and your ministry at Coral Ridge?
RP: My wife, Jennifer, and I have been married for nineteen years this summer. We have two children, aged nine and eleven, Preston and Lydia. Three years ago, we experienced a personal tragedy. We lost our three-year-old daughter named Lily. We are confident in the Lord that there will be a glorious reunion one day. So, you can pray for our family, that God would use that very dark season and that tragic situation to continue to be used for his glory. Also, do pray for our church. I am not sure if your readers are familiar with the recent history of Coral Ridge, but we went through a dark season after the passing of Dr. Kennedy. It was a very stormy season for the ministry and for the church. But I have to say, the last six years have been nothing short of a miracle as God has brought revival back to a church that was split in half, a church that was struggling with identity, vision, and mission. In addition to these prayers, I ask that people would praise God along with me that God is faithful to his church and his bride.
Why are venerable Evangelical and Reformed institutions systematically departing from theological fidelity to embrace new mission objectives? It seems to be happening in a similar fashion in churches, colleges, seminaries, publishing houses, para church organizations, and historically reliable mission agencies. Why is there a steady stream of well-known Evangelical and Reformed leaders either denying the faith “once and for all delivered to the saints” or publicly “deconstructing their faith”? Why are first order Biblical doctrines including the Gospel itself—which is the first of the “first things—being adulterated or abandoned for theological novelties that inevitably result in heresies? Why are professing Evangelical and Reformed minis tries embracing, celebrating, and propagating Gospel heresies such as the prosperity gospel, the therapeutic gospel, the pragmatic church growth gospel, and the newly renovated social gospel, etc.? Why are unbiblical and Gospel-denying political and social ideologies being quoted and implemented from pulpit ministries and in discipleship strategies?
Having spent the last two decades prayerfully attempting to respond biblically and pastorally to this seemingly endless series of theological and ministerial aberrations that have penetrated and permeated Evangelical and Reformed churches, it became obvious that it was past time to pause and reflect on the source of this “poison fruit.” As I’ve taken time for renewal, because of ministry exhaustion, and to reflect, because of increasing ministerial bewilderment, two observations have become obvious, which in turn lead to a decisive conclusion.
First, the content and focus of the identifiable
theological and missional poison fruit was obvious. It consistently manifested itself in the theological and missional adulteration of the Gospel Message and the renovation of the Gospel Mission for Christ’s Church. What was not so obvious was the poisonous root at the source of the poisonous fruit.
Second, over the last two decades I have found myself increasingly recommending J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity & Liberalism even though no one in the increasingly confused orbit of Evangelical and Reformed Christianity seemed to be promoting the radical 19th century theolog ical renovations now known as classical Liberal Theology. Yet not only was Machen’s Christianity & Liberalism help ful to me in the current context, but it was observably helpful to any and all I recommended it to who actively read and used it in addressing this “present distress.”
The conclusion, as I contemplated these things, be came clear. The poisonous root that has produced theological apostasy beginning with the Gospel itself, and the Missional confusion that follows from that, is the 60-year-old movement that calls itself “Progressive Christianity,” a movement which has been and continues to be aimed at redefining the Mission of the Evangelical and Reformed Church as well as its Message. When Progressive Christianity in its 60-year evolution is held under the microscope, the reason why Machen’s Christianity & Liberalism feels so relevant becomes obvious: even though the doctrinal errors and heresies of Liberal Christianity are distinct from the ever-evolving errors and heresies of Progressive Christianity, it becomes undeniable that Progressive Christianity is “cut from the same bolt of cloth” as Liberal Christianity. Both ultimately embrace the fabric of Theological and Missional renovation and therefore inevitably embrace Theological and Missional
apostasy. In other words, Progressive Christianity, at its core, is Liberal Christianity 2.0.
As I’ve continued to explore this connection, I’ve identified five affirmations that reveal the intrinsic connection between so-called Progressive and Liberal Christianity:
1. Liberal Christianity, as it gained influence in the 19th century, entered the 20th century with its sights set upon the Mainline Protestant Church. In the same fashion, Progressive Christianity, having established its footing in the concluding decades of the 20th century, fixed its sights upon the Evangelical and Reformed churches and institutions in the opening decades of the 21st century.
2. Just as Liberal Christianity inevitably produced the errors and heresies of Liberal Theology, so Progres sive Christianity produces its own errors and heresies in Progressive Theology as it adulterates historical and biblical orthodoxy. It does this—in a method poached from Liberal Christianity—by embracing the novelty of a culture-focused Mission for Christ’s Church as superior to the Word of God. This theological downgrade is not only manifested by a loss of Confessional integrity in general, but by the theological devolution of the Christ-given and Gospel-defined Message and Mission of His Church.
3. Progressive Christianity as Liberal Christianity is both parasitic and destructive. It does not bring forth—it tears down. It does not develop—it destroys.
4. Progressive Christianity as a movement, like Liberal Christianity with its theological adulterations and apostasies, promotes unbelief and therefore qualifies as the doctrine of demons. Demonic doctrine means that in the final analysis Progressive Christianity, like Liberal Christianity, is not a subset of Christianity but a virulent adversary of Biblical Christianity. Like so-called Liberal Christianity there may be believers and even faithful churches under its influence for a time. But in the name of Biblical fidelity and Confessional integrity, it must be rejected as a professed movement of Christianity and noted as an adversary because in the final analysis it becomes an instrument of sending the souls of men and women to the judgment of God without the Blessed Hope of the Gospel.
5. Progressive Christianity shares the same three poi soned threads—Motivation, Mission, and Message—with
Liberal Christianity. In light of the decimation wrought by Liberal Christianity in the Mainline Protestant Church of the 20th century, the Evangelical and Reformed Church of the 21st century must examine the Motivation, Mission, and Message of Progressive Chris tianity and its pervasive, penetrating influence. Let’s examine each thread.
Although separated by 100 years, Progressive Christi anity in a real sense is Regressive Christianity revealed as Liberal Christianity 2.0. It shares Liberal Christianity’s same failed motivation, it’s committed to its same failed mission, which ensures an inevitable Theological downgrade of its message, though not necessarily adulterating the same particular doctrines as Liberal Theology did. The theological apostasy of Progressive Christianity will not, for various reasons, necessarily mimic all the apostasies of Liberal Christianity but it will be equally destructive.
The self-confessed motivation of 19th and 20th Century Liberal Christianity was not to destroy Christianity but to save the Mainline Protestant Church from “modernity” and the intimidating sophis tication of the “modern mind.” This was obvious in the talking points of Liberal Christianity: “in light of moder nity the church must be saved from cultural irrelevance” and “Christianity must be saved from the intellectual dustbin of history” and “if Christianity doesn’t change we will lose the next generation.” Sound familiar?
Likewise, the Progressive Christianity of the 20th and 21st Century does not originate from a desire to destroy Christianity. This time the desire is not to save the Protestant Mainline Church, but to save the Evangelical and Reformed Church from “cultural irrelevance,” “the dustbin of history” and “the loss of the next generation.” There is no doubt in my mind that very few contempo rary Progressives are “wolves in sheep’s clothing” such as those Paul warned the Elders of the Church at Ephesus to alertly guard. In fact, I believe the vast majority of them are actually “sheep in wolves’ clothing.” But make no mistake. As affirmed by its celebrated apologists and preachers, Progressive Christianity is “wolves’ clothing” in that it has the identical motivation as Liberal Chris tianity, and dare I say that in reality it is an arrogant motivation—to save Christianity and the Church from cultural
irrelevance. Today, instead of saving Christianity from the “burgeoning movement of modernity”, Progressive Chris tianity proposes to save Christianity from the triumphal movement of post-modernity.
n Liberal Christianity the church is saved from “cultural irrelevance” to a new, culturally approved mission of “Cultural Transformation and human flourishing.” This new and inspirational mission for Mainline Protestant 20th Century Christianity aspired to make the 20th Century into “The Christian Century.” Even a new publication, The Christian Century, was initi ated to inspire Mainline Protestant Churches to unleash an updated “culturally relevant” Christianity that would define a Post-Millennial Utopia. This optimistic hope was broadly proclaimed from the pulpits and publications of Mainline Protestant Churches. Liberal Christianity energetically promised to be the venue to bring “human flourishing” to a waiting world. At last, “Cultural Trans formation” was within our reach. Sound familiar?
Fast forward a century to the concluding 20th and newly inaugurated 21st Century. The Mainline Protes tant Churches that embraced Liberal Christianity are now in the “dustbin of history,” having been eviscerated by Theological Liberalism. Yet, amazingly, previously self-identified “Evangelical churches” are now proclaiming this mission of a “culturally relevant church” fully committed to “cultural transformation.” The Evangelical Church now promises to secure “human flourishing” through “social justice” and newly defined culturally ac commodating sexual ethics guided by so-called culturally informed and sensitive extra-biblical and Gospel-distorting publications. The inevitable casualty is not surprising because we’ve seen it before—a loss of Biblical Integrity and Confessional Fidelity in the message being delivered from Evangelical and Reformed pulpits, classrooms, and publications.
iberal Christianity, motivated to “save the church from cultural irrelevance” and position the church to be a primary culture player to achieve its newly discovered mission of “cultural transformation,” was required to edit the culturally unacceptable doctrines
from its message (i.e. confession) in order to be cultur ally acceptable in the age of “modernity.” The necessary casualty was the removal of any and all doctrines that offended the “sensibilities of the modern mind.” Why? Because doctrines affirming the supernatural power of God, the Holiness of God, and the sinfulness of man were no longer culturally acceptable. In other words, any and all of the foundational, fundamental, and supernatural doctrines of Christianity (i.e. the Virgin Birth, the bodily resurrection of Christ, the necessity of Christ’s atoning death, the inerrancy of God’s Word, the recorded mira cles etc.) were removed. Even more specifically, Liberal Christianity, to be “culturally relevant” and to obtain a seat at the table of the “culture influencers,” out of necessity, jettisoned the Reformation secured Doctrine of “Biblical magisterium” (Sola Scriptura) In its place, Liberal Christianity embraced “Cultural magisterium” resulting in the formulation of a theological message marked by “Cul tural accommodation.” What was the result? First, there was a theological downgrade beginning with theological adulteration, then there was the outright blasphemy of theological apostasy. Sound Familiar?
Progressive Christianity, at this moment, is not pro posing to change the Evangelical and Reformed Confes sions. It simply ignores them or claims to affirm them while twisting their meaning with interpretive gymnas tics. How? By something that places Progressive Christi anity like Liberal Christianity as an insidious adversary of Biblical Christianity: Confessional deception. Progressive Christianity uses the same glossary of theological terms as historic Biblical Christianity but does not use the same theological Dictionary to define those terms. Progressive
Christianity, like Liberal Christianity, in the pursuit of “cultural relevance” to achieve its new mission of “cultural transformation,” abdicates selective theological fidelity by exchanging Biblical magisterium (Sola Scriptura) for Cultural magisterium (cultural accommodation). But the theological downgrade is not focused upon the Inerrancy of Scripture and its fundamental supernatural doctrines as its Liberal forebearer was. Instead, Progressive theology eviscerates the Sufficiency of Scripture in general and the Sufficiency of the Gospel in particular as it redefines the “declarative blessings” of the Gospel in Christ—Justifica tion and Adoption—while denying the integrity of the “transformational blessings”—Regeneration and Sancti fication. Why? In order to maintain a seat at the table of Cultural Transformation in a culture committed to the normalization of neo-pagan sexuality. Cultural Accom modation is simply the theological price tag.
Simply put, Evangelical and Reformed Christianity must respond to Progressive Christianity, which in reality is Liberal Christianity 2.0. If we don’t then the same inevitable Divine judgment in the “removal of the Lampstand” announcing “Ichabod—the glory of the Lord has departed” inflicted upon the Mainline Protestant Church awaits the Evangelical and Reformed Church. Liberal Christianity produced Liberal Theology, and Progressive Christianity is producing Progressive Theology. Since they are both “cut from the same bolt of cloth” they will likewise earn the same destructive consequences under a Sovereign God who alone gives His Church its divine motivation, mission, and message.
In light of this, how should Gospel-affirming, Confessional Christians respond to Progressive Christianity?
First, pray. Pray for our Lord to raise up Leaders who will exhort and equip God’s Church in humble reliance upon the Spirit of God and the grace of God to embrace its Christ-given motivation, mission, and message.
Our Lord has given us repeatedly our motivation, mission, and message. But initially and definitively He delivered it to the first Gen eral Assembly of His Church on an unnamed mountain in Galilee after His Resurrection and prior to His
Ascension recorded in Matthew 28:16–20. When they saw Him “they worshiped Him,” and so our motivation is the ubiquitous life-permeating call of the Almighty to live all of life “to the praise of His glorious grace.” We may make Christ’s church irrelevant, but we can’t make the Triune God relevant. There is nothing more relevant than the Gospel message delivered in the power of the Holy Spirit whom He has given to us. Nothing more rel evant than proclaiming by His grace that message He has delivered to us for God’s glory. The motivation of Christ’s Church, beginning with its leadership and spreading throughout its fellowship, is to glorify the Triune God of grace through the Preeminence of Christ our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.
The Christ-given mission in the text for His Church is unmistakably simple yet gloriously pro found— make disciples.” It is a narrow and focused mission. The Family, not the Church, is the foundational institution of Creation, but the Church will impact the Family if we stay on mission. Neither is the State God’s providential institution addressing the Fall, but the Church will impact the State if we stay on mission.
The Church has a narrow and focused mission to “make disciples.” If we stay on mission and on message with a God-exalting motivation we, by God’s grace, will produce disciples who are called and equipped with a broad and comprehensive mission—“the Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World”—disciples who intentionally live that “in all things Christ might have preeminence”, who are ready and desirous to “love mercy, do justice, and walk humbly with God.” But for God’s people to accomplish their broad and comprehensive mission, Christ’s Church must stay fixed on our narrow and focused mission. How does a narrow mission of disciple-making produce disciples equipped for their broad and comprehensive mission? The answer is in our Christgiven message.
Christ has not only given His Church its motiva tion and its mission, but also a broad and com prehensive message. In order to “make disciples” His Church is to “teach them to observe all that I have
commanded you.” Our message is the “whole counsel of God” with the Gospel providing our Foundation, Formation, and Motivation. We know that “all Scripture is inspired and profitable for doctrine, reproof, correc tion and training in righteousness that the man of God [disciple] might be complete and equipped for every good work.”(2 Tim. 3:16,17)
Let’s conclude with some Life Takeaways for focus, balance, and next steps:
1. Patience. The vast majority of those involved at vari ous levels of ministries within the orbit of Progressive Christianity whom I have known are brothers and sisters in Christ who have been caught up in the seemingly benign promises Progressive Christianity makes. So, let’s be patient in dialogue and constantly be committed to “giving the judgment of charity,” yet unyielding in our commitment to God’s truth.
2. Contextualization. Progressive Christianity thrives on a misuse of the Biblical call to contextualize the mes sage and ministry of the Gospel. Yes, to be faithful and effective we are to be “in the world but not of the world.” But Biblical contextualization is “speaking in the terms the world understands while refusing to speak only on the terms it demands.”
3. Harmony of Mission and Message. Remember that the functional mission of your ministry will ultimately define and determine the message. For example, if your mission is self-esteem you will develop a therapeutic gospel; a mission of church growth will produce a pragmatic gospel; a mission of social justice (which is different than biblical justice) will produce a social gospel; a mission of cultural transformation will produce a gospel of cultural accommodation. To stay on message you must stay on mission.
Remember that missional is a historical term de scribing an individual’s commitment to accomplishing their mission. Therefore, as long as the mission is correct being missional is correct. The problem today would be more appropriately termed missional-ism, as in some cases where mission has become untethered to the Scrip ture as its final authority.
4. Transformation. Remember that while cultural transformation is not the mission of the Church it is a desired consequence. In Europe, less than 25 years after
the Ascension of Christ, an adversary said about the encroachment of the Christianity, “these people [Christ’s Church] who have turned the world upside down have come here also.” What he did not know is that Paul and his team had been sent by Christ through His Church not to “turn the world upside down” but to turn sinners right-side up. When sinners are transformed by Gospel evangelism and discipleship the culture gets transformed as a consequence of pervasively changed lives.
5. Public theology. Remember that discipling by teaching “all that Jesus commanded” certainly encom passes prophetic preaching and teaching that addresses the issues of the culture—public theology in the public square.
6. Biblical Magisterium. The historical hallmark of Evangelical and Reformed Christianity has been to rightly embrace the Reformation’s foundational Sola that “The Scripture alone is our only rule of faith and practice”—Biblical Magisterium. In the Reformation the Reformed Church said “No” to Ecclesiastical Magiste rium. Today the Evangelical and Reformed Church must say “No” to Cultural Magisterium by rejecting Cultural Accommodation in the name of Contextualization. One obvious sign of Cultural Magisterium is ready preach ing on sins that the culture condemns, but a deafening silence on the sins it approves, such as abortion, gender fluidity, the rejection of family and marriage etc.
Biblical Magisterium demands we preach and teach “the whole counsel of God.”
OLord, may Your Church intentionally, in hum ble reliance upon God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, simply yet profoundly serve our Savior by staying on Mission, on Message, and in Ministry.
Harry L. Reeder III is
Church in Birmingham, Alabama. He is a member of the Board of Trustees at Westminster, and an adjunct faculty member in the pastoral theology department. He is the author of Embers to a Flame and 3D Leadership
of
Briarwood Presbyterian Church is a twentieth-cen tury landmark in the American Presbyterian tradition. It served as one of the locations at which the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) was formed, a denomination whose present membership is nearly 400,000. Receiving its designation from flora local to the Cahaba Heights area, Briarwood’s humble beginnings and later success evidence a considerable faithfulness to the gospel and the broader cause of Christ.
It was in early June of 1960 that the first services were held at the church’s very first location in the Cahaba Heights Shopping Center. Though sequestered away in a meager building such as this, Briarwood was effec tively met with immediate success, as the church quickly required a much larger space to gather for Lord’s Day services and its weeknight programs. Indeed, just four months later, Briarwood acquired a larger space on Highway 280, which was the location of the founding of the Presbyterian Church in America in December of 1973. This new location, while affording significantly more space, accommodated the steadily growing congregation only temporarily. Fifteen years later, Briarwood built its current location, which hosts several notable, world-impacting ministries, and has one of the largest church memberships in the PCA.
What accounts for Briarwood’s remarkable success? The depth of the gospel ministry fostered the church’s daily-increasing breadth Dr. Frank Morehead Barker, Jr. (January 31, 1932–Decem ber 27, 2021),1 pastor of Briarwood for nearly thirty-nine years, had a profound gospel-oriented vision which was
Frank Barker Preaching
manifest in humble reliance on the power and providence of the Lord. This helps one understand the depth of the gospel ministry at Briarwood. Frank Barker’s life is a welltold story of fidelity to the gospel, a faithfulness cultivated by a thriving dedication to prayer. If the Puritans teach us anything about prayer, it is that prayer is a supreme work of utmost importance; it is the spiritual breath of holy living. And as Harry Reeder, who is the current pastor of Briarwood Presbyterian Church and who was immensely blessed under the tutelage of Frank Barker says, this is precisely what invigorated his ministry. Reeder remarks that “Frank Barker was the quintessential praying pastor.” Such devotion to prayer was frequently noted in his weekly sermons. Indeed, Frank believed what he preached when he said that God will “answer according to His wisdom and goodness when we pray” in a sermon in 2017.2
Frank’s ministry was not, as many are today, bol stered by a strong or domineering personality. On the contrary, Barker was a “humble visionary” who habitu ally prayed that God would see fit to bring about great things through him, though not for him. Reeder says that “Frank did not have a big personality that noticeably filled up a room. What he had was a profound personal
relationship with Christ, one that noticeably filled up his heart.” His service to Christ made the glory of Christ and His saving gospel the center. This is evidenced even toward the end of his life. After having been diagnosed with terminal cancer, Frank did not desire to escape the inescapable. No, he embraced it in his heart, for he saw “death as a promotion.”
He held fast to that blessed hope, sustained by the seed of faith, which will blossom most beautifully in the light of glory. The gospel taught him that death is no longer an executioner but a gardener.3
One who sees his own death as promotion is one who, as Thomas Manton once said, attends to that which should be his greatest care, namely “that place where he [shall] live the longest.”4 This eternal perspective, which was fortified by daily prayer, was clearly manifest in his gospel ministry and in his regular conversations. Weekly sermons at Briarwood were, as Reeder says, “biblical, through and through.” Such a biblical emphasis dis tinctly points to the everlasting hope found in the gospel of Christ. Reeder continues, “His preaching ministry was always biblically faithful and filled with practical appli cations; it was Christ-exalting.”
Bob Shaw, one of the many converts of Frank Barker’s ministry, recently recounted that “Frank was an evangelist, first and foremost.” He almost invariably directed the conversation to eternity, asking, “Where do you stand?” For Frank, even traveling by car was an opportunity to share the gospel. Shaw said that “If Frank saw someone hitch-hiking on a major road in Birmingham, he liked to pick them up.” Driving these hitch-hikers to their destinations provided Frank with a certain audience to “speak about Jesus.” In one of these instances in 1965, which was early in Frank’s ministry, Shaw’s father was picked up and was led to faith in Jesus Christ. For Shaw’s family, this providential moment was decisive for the Lord’s contin ued work in his family. In fact, according to Shaw, “almost everyone in my family today is walking with Jesus.”
Such eager devotion to prayer and the evangelistic efforts required by gospel ministry does not emerge ex vacuo. Oftentimes the brightest devotion is kindled in the darkness of sin and suffering by the God who calls light out of darkness. As Thomas Brooks once said, “flowers smell sweetest after a shower” and “afflictions are… the mother of virtue.” 5 And when Augustine was cast down by a storm within his restless heart weeping a “mighty shower of tears,” the “darkness of doubt vanished
away”6 by the illuminating light of the gospel. Augustine went on, by the grace of God, to become one of the most notable Christians of the Western tradition. Much can be said of Frank, who lived a “wild life,” 7 and how he likewise, by the grace of God, went on to cultivate and foster world-impacting ministries.
Beginning in 1960, after an insistent navy chaplain led him to Christ, Frank Barker’s vision was cast and shortly thereafter began to materialize. From the initial agreement to plant a church within the Birmingham Presbytery’s jurisdiction in early summer to the charter of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Sep tember, the setting for the Lord’s work through Frank Barker was established. The conspicuous and virtually immediate breadth of Frank’s ministerial efforts was subsequently seen. Frank was involved in the formation of a number of ministries spanning from elementary and high school education to college campus ministries, to missionary organizations and advanced theological education. Campus Outreach is one of those noteworthy ministries. Campus Outreach is a college campus min istry that seeks to prepare laborers for the lost world. In the 1960s, Briarwood had been involved in the coordinated efforts of Campus Crusade. However, due to a
selective focus, this particular college ministry typically only served larger academic institutions. Frank was bur dened by the reality that smaller colleges and private colleges had students who were afloat in the sea of cultural change, and thus they, too, needed the light of the gospel. This ministry quickly prospered and now has ministers serving at about 180 campuses in multiple countries.
Also conceived and organized in the 1960s is the reputable Briarwood Christian School. Briarwood Christian School was first prayerfully proposed at the Highway 280 location and has since grown exponentially to now educate over 1900 young students. Shortly after the founding of Briarwood Christian School, Briarwood held its first World Missions Conference. The Global Missions Conference just held its fifty-seventh annual conference, “Gifted to Serve,” which raised a significant amount of money to contribute to many missions efforts worldwide. It is striking to any observer of Frank’s life to see just how many ministries flourished during his early years.
This God-given ambition fostered by prayer carried on for many decades. Birmingham Theological Seminary was formed in the following decade in 1972. Birmingham Theological Seminary was first planned in light of an appreciable need for “men and women to be trained for Christian service.” 7 To this day, Birmingham Theological Seminary facilitates Reformed theological education that is expeditiously ordered to evangelistic efforts. One can surely carry on enumerating the stories, testimonies, and the work of Frank Barker. In the midst of all this tangible success, Frank’s ultimate desire, Reeder says, was that “Christ would be honored.” And how fitting a description, for Frank’s favorite hymn was “To God be the Glory, great things He has done.” 9
As Peter Lillback recently said, Frank has left a legacy that is vast in impact. That legacy is marked by “Gos pel-centered preaching, outreach and mission, all shaped by humble fidelity and persevering generosity in ministry for the glory of Christ.” Peter continued in a hopeful tone that “God might enable Westminster to raise up other pastoral leaders who would follow Dr. Barker’s godly example.” It is our collective prayer at Westminster that the light of the gospel of Christ would shine ever so brightly in the darkness and that Westminster graduates might powerfully participate in that work, calling those who still yet abide in this world to “turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God” (Acts 26:18).
In recognition of Frank Barker’s service to the cause of Christ, Westminster is pleased to announce the Frank Barker Chair of Missions and Evangelism. This endowed chair seeks to honor Dr. Barker and his commitment to faithful, expository preaching and evangelistic efforts. As an endowed chair, Westminster will be financially afforded the opportunity to continue to facilitate rigorous theological education so as to train specialists in the Bible who are keen to evangelize in our increasingly tumultuous and adversarial culture. Should you wish to contribute to the newly founded Barker Chair, please visit https://www.wts.edu/donate.
1 For other articles celebrating the life and ministry of Frank Barker, see https://www.wbrc.com/2021/12/28/briarwood-founder -dr-frank-barker-jr-dies/, https://religionnews.com/2021/12/28/ the-rev-frank-barker-founding-pastor-of-briarwood-presbyterian -church-has-died/, https://www.al.com/life/2021/12/founding -pastor-of-briarwood-presbyterian-church-dies.html, https://obits. al.com/us/obituaries/birmingham/name/frank-barker -obituary?id=32038667
2 https://briarwood.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/141210_12-31-17 _am.pdf. Accessed July 2022.
3..George Herbert, "Time"
4 William G. Harris (ed), The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, Volume 6 (J. Nisbet & Company, 1872), 182.
5 Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices: Being a Companion for Christians of All Denominations (J. Pounder, 1810), 86.
6 Augustine, Confessions VIII.28–29. Accessed https://www.ccel.org /ccel/augustine/confess.ix.xii.html
7 https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/amazing-story-frank -barker-campus-outreach/
8 https://briarwood.org/ministries/birmingham-theological -seminary/
9 https://briarwood.org/resources/dr-frank-barker-bible-teaching /remembering-rev-frank-m-barker-jr/
Nathan Nocchi is the Assistant Director of the Craig Center for the Study of the Westminster Standards and Associate Editor of Westminster Magazine. Nathan is also undertaking PhD studies in historical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary that focus on seventeenth-century philosophy and theology, particularly in the Puritan Theophilus Gale (1628–1678).
Who is the honest man?
He that doth still and strongly good pursue; To God, his neighbor, and himself, most true.
Whom neither force nor fawning can Unpin, or wrench from giving all their due.
Whose honesty is not So loose or easy, that a ruffling wind Can blow away, or glittering look it blind.
Who rides his sure and even trot, While the world now rides by, now lags behind.
Who, when great trials come, Nor seeks, nor shuns them, but doth calmly stay, Till he the thing and the example weigh.
All being brought into a sum, What place or person calls for, he doth pay.
Whom none can work or woo, To use in any thing a trick, or sleight; For above all things he abhors deceit.
His words and works, and fashion too, All of a piece; and all are clear and straight.
Who never melts or thaws At close temptations. When the day is done, His goodness sets not, but in dark can run. The sun to others writeth laws, And is their virtue: virtue is his sun.
Who, when he is to treat With sick folks, women, those whom passions sway, Allows for that, and keeps his constant way; Whom others’ faults do not defeat; But, though men fail him, yet his part doth play.
Whom nothing can procure, When the wide world runs bias, from his will To writhe his limbs, and share, not mend, the ill. This is the marksman safe and sure; Who still is right, and prays to be so still.
Framework exists to equip pastors and church leaders by deploying a biblically faithful theological framework to engage the challenging moral, civic, and cultural issues the church faces in society.
Scripture is true and sufficient Good theology should be public theology There is an urgent need in the church Our role is to equip not politicize We must prepare for what's next
“The church lives in the world and it lives within the domain of political entities. If it is to be faithful to its commission it must make its voice heard and felt in reference to public questions.”
–John Murray
