When confessionalists hear that gender accommodation, positive engagement over homosexuality, and the acceptance of the secularist theory of evolution are necessary to our cultural success (you didn’t mention this, but it is a looming issue in our division), we scour our Bibles in vain to discover valid precedents.  In the spirit of Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:1-6, we admit that we have no confidence in sociological leverage but rely completely on the supernatural blessing of a merciful and sovereign God on the ordinary means of grace he has given to his Church. 

This week a letter titled The State of the PCA was published by Bryan Chapell in By Faith, the denominational magazine of the PCA.  This public letter is another of the many takes in recent years on our denomination from the perspective of a senior statesman with progressive leanings.  Few readers will disagree with Bryan’s mapping of the three main factions in the PCA.  As a committed confessionalist, I find however that this letter does not shed as much light as its author may have hoped.  In the spirit of increasing understanding and of sincere communication, I offer this public letter of response with a prayer for a charitable reading not only by Bryan personally but by all those whose perspective may be different from mine.

Dear Bryan,

Like so many others, I read with interest your open letter on The State of the PCA.  I am heartened by your hope that our common engagement with a post-Christian culture may bring us together.  However, I have to admit that your letter actually increases my sense that our divisions are likely to be more pronounced in the emerging environment.  In saying this, I am reflecting primarily on the assumptions that seem evident in your perspective, at least as I try to understand them.   Taking your open letter as a sincere attempt to communicate into the PCA’s current state, please receive this response as a sincere attempt to communicate back as a representative of the confessionalist wing.  In doing this, I would highlight a few assumptions which I think mark our significant differences.

The first assumption that I see involves your sense that the two sides adequately understand one another.  Reading your letter, however, persuades me that progressives fundamentally misunderstand confessionalists (which may suggest  that confessionalists don’t understand progressives well either).  Let me try to be brief in pointing out ways in which you seem fundamentally to misunderstand us:

1) We are not traditionalists and never identify ourselves this way.  Unless, by tradition, you mean the faith of our fathers and the great confessional and ministerial heritage of the Reformed churches.  But I travel pretty widely in confessional circles and never hear anything about “tradition.”  This seems to be a way to marginalize us as having a regressive attitude.  In fact, we are zealous activists, seeking to reform what seems to us the accommodationist tradition of broad evangelicalism.

2)  We are not identified by an over-50 age group.  On the one hand, I note that the progressives seem to be led by an over-60 group of men with impressive credentials and achievements which merit respect.  On the other hand, confessionalists are encouraged by an influx of younger ministers who are drawn to an historic Reformed vision of the church and of ministry.  Many of our most thoughtful voices are well under 50!  And when I attend events like the TGC National Convention, I do not at all feel like an outsider but interact with huge numbers of non-presbyterians who are drawn to a confessional vision.

3) Whatever made you think that our heroes include Jerry Fallwell, Pat Robertson, Jim Dobson and Chuck Colson (or even Francis Schaeffer)?  Our heroes are John Calvin, John Knox, J. Gresham Machen, Geerhardus Vos, and, of course, Carl Trueman.  While many confessional Christians believe that we need faithfully to fulfill our civic duties as Christians, so that we tend to oppose pagan political agendas, our vision for the church is an ordinary means of grace vision rather that of culture war.  We want to preach through Deuteronomy, not the US Constitution.

4) Curiously, you seem to associate the 20^th century culture warrior leaders with our party, when we actually associate them with your party.  After all, few Christians were more effective culture-engagers than Jim Kennedy was.  The difference between that group and the progressives today is mainly one of context.  For all his great virtues and achievements (and they were many), the reason Kennedy seems less relevant today was because he was so in tune with the spirit and culture of his day.  This is the very approach we are seeking to avoid.

5) Confessionalists do not assume that we are part of a dominant Christian culture in society.  I did not learn that when I was converted in downtown Philadelphia in 1990 and we do not think this in Greenville, SC today.

6). You seem to believe that our churches are stagnant and decreasing.  I’m not sure where you get this information.  Most of my fellow confessional pastors are raising money to increase our seating capacity and we are planting confessional churches in urban areas.  I wonder if this is a gratuitous assumption on your part, because it does not square with my experience in confessional circles.

There may be other ways in which progressives wrongly assume that they understand confessionalists, but these six issues in your letter make me wish you really understood us, because I do not recognize the people you are describing.

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