Adding to our confessions need not be the daunting task which some think. It might begin simply by a presbytery overturing our General Assembly to bring a proposal to NAPARC. Said proposal would convene a committee of scholars, drawn from across the member communions, to draw up a model confessional statement on marriage, sex, and gender, along with suggestions as to how it might fit into the Westminster Standards and the Three Forms of Unity.

I was a commissioner at the OPC’s 69th General Assembly (2002), which determined the Christian Reformed Churches should be removed from the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council because the 1995 CRC Synod had opened the offices of elder and minister to women.

For the first time, I learned the grounds for removing a body from NAPARC: infidelity to one’s own confessional standards. In this case, it was alleged the CRC violated Belgic Confession 30’s requirement that only faithful men be chosen for these offices, according to the rule of 1Timothy 3. I voted with the majority because passages such as 1 Timothy 2 limit the ordained offices to men, but was troubled by my vote because 1 Timothy 3 does not; (2) nor, for that matter, do the Belgic Confession (or any of the Three Forms of Unity) or the Westminster Standards.  CRC officers could comfortably drift toward liberalism on this issue without any conscience-troubling admonitions from their confessions.

With regard to the struggle precipitated by the old PCUSA’s slide into liberalism, our own J. Gresham Machen wrote, “[t]he really important things are the things about which men will fight.” (3) By that measure, the really important thing today, the most significant question at issue in the Church and in our culture, is the nature of gender and sexual relationships.

As I write, the latest development is the approval of same-sex marriage by the New York state legislature; at the current pace, I imagine yet another outrage will be more current by the time you read this. The fight is on, but if our confessions are the weapons with which the Reformed Churches fight, we are woefully unarmed.

At the time the confessions of the NAPARC Churches were written, the present confusion over sex and gender which prevails in our culture at large would have been entirely unimaginable. This is probably why the Westminster divines left us with a ban on the doctrine of purgatory (WCF 32.1), but no statement, let alone argument, as to why ordained offices are limited to men.

In the Church and in the world, confessions serve three functions: confessional, catechetical, and apologetic; in order to meet the challenges of this present age in each of these areas, the Reformed Confessions (4) should be supplemented by a clear and robust statement of Scriptural teaching on sex and gender. I shall proceed by describing the three functions of confessions which I have identified, (5) giving attention to their role in the present controversy, and suggest a way forward.

The Confessions as Confessions

I hazard to guess this is how most officers view their confessions: as a statement of belief, specifically, a belief that the doctrines identified are true, Biblical, and ought to be affirmed by anyone holding office in the Church. I have heard some suggest that because Biblical teaching on sex and gender is implicit in our secondary standards (especially when one includes the Book of Church Order), (6) the confessions are adequate statements on these matters. For the sake of argument, I am willing to concede this point.

However, I am uncomfortable having an essential point of doctrine stated only implicitly in our confessions, and I believe every Church officer ought to share my discomfort.

To illustrate: any candidate for the Gospel ministry who might teach the Romanist doctrine of purgatory would be screened out by WCF 32.1, and any pastor who veers in that direction would be charged with heresy on the basis of Scripture and (again) WCF 32.1. Matters of such weight and moment, almost by definition, belong in confessions. I hope my fellow officers agree no man who believes the wife should be head over her husband bought be admitted to holy office; accordingly, this should be mentioned in our confessions along with the ban on purgatory.

Confessions also guide the deliberations and decisions of Church judicatories. If you’re at all like me, a moment spent reading what passes for debate on internet sites over doctrines such as justification inspires a deep appreciation for the sane, wise, and carefully measured statements of our confessions. Unfortunately, a desire to “do something” to stand against the worldly surge toward gender confusion has led some in our circles to take reactionary stances. A thoughtful confessional statement can guard us against the errors of both the right and the left.

An additional, more pragmatic matter comes to mind under this head. Some pastors and sessions may avoid sermons against same-sex marriage lest they be accused of “preaching politics.” Indeed, I suspect some sessions may even be concerned their congregations could lose tax-exempt status. While I do not believe this concern should restrain the preacher, however the IRS may be proceeding these days, (7) putting controversial sex and gender issues into our confessions will clarify their standing as matters of faith, practice, and morality, and not mere political preference.

Confessions as Catechesis

The Larger and Shorter Catechisms, as is the Heidelberg, are, of course, catechisms: documents framed specifically to instruct the people in the essentials of their faith. To that end, catechisms have been used in the Churches not only to directly instruct the youth and converts, but even to provide the doctrines through which the pastor should preach for the edification of all.

Even when they are not used in this way, all confessions have a catechetical function: they identify that which must be believed by the Church’s officers as well as that which all the Church’s members should be instructed to believe. In a properly ordered congregation, the confessions set the theological agenda, telling the preacher and member alike what doctrines should be believed and what doctrines which, while interesting and true, are not so necessary for the leading of faithful lives.

I trust I can state with little fear of contradiction that Christian families must understand the Biblical patterns for their relationships if their homes are to be rightly ordered: these are doctrines without which they simply cannot do. However, one’s pastor could faithfully preach through the Larger, Shorter, and Heidelberg Catechisms (in that order!), and, unless he were inclined to do some extra work on the Fifth Commandment, one would hear precious little about these things.

In like manner, one’s pastor would have to be fairly creative to work into his course of catechetical preaching an explanation as to why only men may preach. The members of our Churches need this instruction and putting it into our confessions is the most obvious way to begin insuring they get it.

Confessions as Apologetic

This function of confessions may be a bit hard to imagine in practice, (8) but necessarily follows from the previous two. By definition, confessions clearly state where we believe the boundaries of orthodoxy lie.

A few years ago, Modern Reformation published an essay of mine on preaching in which I referred to evangelical feminism as a heresy. This raised some ire amongst a segment of that magazine’s readership, who wrote to complain of my casually reading them out of orthodoxy on the basis of what they believed idiosyncratic and reactionary opinions.

I responded by articulating the Biblical reasons evangelical feminism is a grave error, but the episode illustrated one way in which confessions could have served as an apologetic: to define and defend the boundaries of orthodoxy to, and sometimes against, erring brethren.

Confession as apologetic also follows from its role as catechesis: that is, the catechized

Christian is much better equipped to articulate and defend the faith to a world which, at least occasionally, asks him to give account for the hope within him. When recent state judicial and legislative actions come up in the workplace breakroom, I would like to think the average confessional Presbyterian will be able to explain the foundational characteristics of marriage which are threatened when the civil magistrate recognizes same-sex marriages as legally valid.

I would like to think this, but I’ve had too many conversations in which confessional Presbyterians frankly admit they can’t see the existential threat to marriage posed by this innovation, or by no-fault divorce before it, for this to be anything more than a fond wish.

With regard to the major social issue of our day, our confessionally reformed people are woefully unprepared to defend the commonplace assumptions of untold generations of Christians regarding sex, gender, and marriage. To call this a scandal would be scandalous understatement.

A Modest Proposal

I have often heard the assertion that we should not write confessions because ours is “not a confession-writing age.” This is not only a tautology; it ignores the rather cheering fact that the 20th century bore witness to great advances in reformed theology. While we all can point to the sweeping insights of Geerhardus Vos and Cornelius Van Til, we should also remember the contributions of theologians such as our own Richard Gaffin, Jr. to the broader Church on settled matters of orthodoxy such as cessationism. We are better equipped now than any generation before us to articulate and defend foundational Christian doctrine.

Very little is more plainly stated and widely understood than the Bible’s teaching on marriage and gender. All NAPARC officers in good standing would agree:

•The offices of ruling and teaching elder may be held only by men;

•Sexual activity belongs only within marriage;

•Marriage can only be between one man and one woman, and Christian marriage reflects the eschatological union of Christ and Church;

•Divorce is only to be permitted on a very limited number of grounds, which number is much smaller than that presently allowed by the civil courts of our states and provinces;

•The husband is head, in an authoritative manner, over his wife and family.

No one can long question the settled answers to these questions before one begins to question the nature and authority of Scripture itself. Say what one will about the faults of the Reformed Churches, our officers are extremely good at stating, explaining, and defending the plain teaching of God’s Word. Against the skeptics, I have every confidence the confessional reformed communions represented by NAPARC have men of the requisite Biblical knowledge, scholarly insight, and personal piety to formulate a statement on marriage, sex, and gender which can stand alongside the original contents of the Westminster Confession of Faith.

I readily acknowledge several of the doctrines I’ve listed above, and other relevant matters, already appear within the Reformed Confessions. Others do not, of course, and my concern is that these are not drawn together under one head and their necessary relationships clearly demonstrated. To insert some repetition into the Westminster Confession would be no new thing: the regulative principle of worship, for example, is articulated three times. (9) Surely our standards would suffer no insult by some slight repetition of core anthropological doctrines!

Adding to our confessions need not be the daunting task which some think. It might begin simply by a presbytery overturing our General Assembly to bring a proposal to NAPARC. Said proposal would convene a committee of scholars, drawn from across the member communions, to draw up a model confessional statement on marriage, sex, and gender, along with suggestions as to how it might fit into the Westminster Standards and the Three Forms of Unity. The Churches of NAPARC would then decide how they might amend their own standards as the result of what would have been a cross-denominational (10) consultative process.

Ours is not a confession-writing age because we have chosen not to write confessions. As the spirit of our age insists, with ever-greater stridency, that we tolerate and even embrace what God’s Word calls sin, we ought not to neglect our duty any longer. In the place of confusion, let us proclaim the clear teaching of Scripture; in the place of its sin, let us call our age to submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ by true repentance and faith in his saving work on the Cross.

Matthew W. Kingsbury a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian church and serves as pastor of Park Hill Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Denver, CO.

FOOTNOTES:

(1) This paper was originally delivered as part of the symposium “Sex, Gender, and American Presbyterianism” hosted by Bethlehem Reformed Church (OPC) the evening before the September 26-27, 2011 stated meeting of the Presbytery of the Dakotas.

(2) The relevant verses from 1 Timothy 3 require the personal characteristic of fidelity, and in particular sexual fidelity within marriage.

(3) Christianity & Liberalism (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1923 [1996 reprint]), p. 2

(4) By “Reformed Confessions,” I mean the Three Forms of Unity and the Westminster Standards. As an officer of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, I am most concerned with my own communion’s confessions, but the arguments I make in this paper speak to all NAPARC Churches.

(5) I do not intend to limit confessions’ utility to these three functions, but have chosen them as helpful ways to approach the subject at hand.

(6) The constitution of the OPC consists of the Bible, the Westminster Standards, and the Book of Church Order (technically, our tertiary standard), whose weightiness and authority descends in that order. Only the Bible cannot be amended, as it alone is divinely inspired. (OPC Form of Government XXXII)

(7) What shall it profit a congregation if it retains its tax-exempt status but loses the whole counsel of God?

(8) Although one could do worse than throw WSC 1 at Richard Dawkins.

(9) WCF 1.6, 20.2, and 21.1.

(10) And/or inter-federational.