From: “Steven Wright”
Subject: Mississippi Valley Presbytery’s denunciations?
Does anyone know if the *presbytery* made those pronouncements?
As a candidate in the MS Valley Presbytery, I attended the Presbytery meeting on Tuesday. Ligon Duncan presented the “final report” of the Ad Hoc Committee on the NPP-NTW-NS-AAPC (“Federal Vision”) [I didn’t make that name up!]. This consisted of a 36-page document distributed at the meeting. Included are the previous précis reports, now with footnotes appended. Included as an “Exhibit” was the letter from the AAPC session responding to those précis reports. The major new item was a letter of over 4 pages designed to be sent out in the name of the MS Valley Presbytery. The plan is to send this to all PCA Presbyteries, maybe all PCA sessions, and perhaps to other denominations as guidance about these issues. At the heart of this letter is a list of 17 views deemed “to be outside the bounds of acceptable diversity within the PCA.” It was explained that no exceptions would be allowed in this Presbytery on these issues and the hope was that this would be the case throughout the PCA. Many of these statements are vague and cry out for clarification, but there were no questions or discussion from the floor of a substantive nature (just a few comments on typos, tone, and a concern about how negative language about John Frame would reflect on RTS). Another action was that this Presbytery would join with another (Central Florida, I think) in requesting the the LA Presbytery investigate the views of TE Steve Wilkins.
Brothers, after sitting through this I could not sleep Tuesday night. I have not personally made up my mind on many of these issues, but as a candidate I was struck with fear. There is clearly no room for discussion around here. Included also was a list of “suggested” questions for the Credentials Committee to use with candidates under the headings of New Perspectives, N.T. Wright, Norman Shepherd, and Federal Vision. You can be sure these suggested will be enacted in theological exams to sniff out anyone with an openness on this broad group of issues.
I was grieved by many things. Though the lengthy letter had not been distributed in advance, it was read and then voted upon at the meeting. There was no discussion of the issues. The letter itself makes references to recent events (such as Rich’s problems with Evangel Presbytery) in a way that strikes me as innuendo and scandal-mongering. In response to AAPC’s request for interaction at an exegetical level, the letter states that “the committee’s purview did not entail the provision of a definitive exegetical, historical and theological rebuttal.” All they attempted to do was evaluate in light of the Confession. Much of the language regarding out-of-bounds views is so vague that there will be a need for a new Magisterium to interpret and apply it. So, who is on the road to Rome here?
I did not post about this earlier because I am still emotionally ripped apart by it. After the document is cleaned up, it will be public and I suspect will be posted on the FPC/Jackson web-site. If people seriously think about it, they will see it for the axe-grinding that it is, but I fear many will accept it all as the gospel truth. It was voted that the committee would continue to work in order to advise those outside the Presbytery and continue publishing. It was announced that Guy Waters has another book coming out from P&R later this year addressing the Federal Vision. The title is, “Covenant Theology Improved?”
Please pray for this presbytery and for all to whom this will be sent. Please pray for candidates wrestling with these issues in the face of such power. Please pray for the unity rather than the fracturing of Christ’s church. And please remember the confidentiality policy of this list!
sw (the younger)
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 15:07:16 -0600
From: Mark Horne
Subject: Mississippi Valley Presbytery’s denunciations?
Don’t lose heart Steven. The very process you describe may well be their undoing. (I am sorry the inflammatory attacks on John Frame were taken out. I remember being exposed to such extremist and sloganeering criticism, spoken without vitriol, when I was foolish enough to travel down to RTS Jackson and interview. I repeat that everything happening was foreshown to us in the way Frame has been accosted). I would like advice on how we should proceed. I want to allow God to fight my battles but I don’t want to do something wrong by being silent. Suggestions?
Steven recover your cheerfulness and hold your head high. Of course, your emotional upset helped me greatly since I was on the brink of plummeting. But we have no control over what happens, and getting to suffer for righteousness’ sake is a rather great honor. And to do so without any actual torture or martyrdom is nice too.
Mark
PS. Lig Duncan is now the ??? president? whatever of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The story in byfaithonline.org is interesting. I think it is especially interesting that in Duncan’s attack on “real presence” he names Garver, Lusk, Leithart, and me and, in a footnote, dismisses us for teaching that the sacraments do what Hebrews 6 talk about. That is not the Reformed view, he tells us. But the only place I can find such a statement is in Michael Horton’s essay on ministry and sacraments. That was originally published on ACE’s website but it is not gone since ACE and ModernReformation has been severed.
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 21:13:16 GMT
From: “rmmccheyne@juno.com”
Subject: Mississippi Valley Presbytery’s denunciations?
Steven,
Thanks for your thorough report. Your situation is far from easy, and I can certainly understand why sleep was hard to come by. It is a feeling of frustration and powerlessness when you can’t even “think out loud” regarding some of these issues. The very group of men that should be charitably encouraging ministerial candidates and licentiates (read: the Presbytery), are standing by ready to tar and feather anyone who doesn’t jump through all of their theological hoops. Shameful.
Empathetically,
Joe Thacker
RP Church
Lookout Mt. GA
(I can only guess that the “Duncan” of the TVP will seek to follow suit.)
Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2005 00:29:30 -0000
From: “garver”
Subject: Mississippi Valley Presbytery’s denunciations?
Steven,
Thanks for the report on the MVP meeting. Good to know the fuller story.
At the heart of this letter is a list of 17 views deemed “to be outside the bounds of acceptable diversity within the PCA.”
I’d be very interested in seeing this. Any idea where one might get a copy?
joel
Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2005 04:23:27 -0000
From: “Jonathan Barlow”
Subject: Mississippi Valley Presbytery’s denunciations?
Yes, somebody please scan this thing and post it — curiousity is getting the better of me.
I spent some time reading Greco’s contributions to that “puritan” bulletin board that someone mentioned earlier. Yikes, man. That guy delights in being a stubborn mule.
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 21:33:37 -0800 (PST)
From: Tim Varner
Subject: Mississippi Valley Presbytery’s denunciations?
Jonathan,
Fred Greco is head of the canidates and credentials committee in our presbytery (Great Lakes). He is notorious for making all sorts of secretive hushed request to the moderator just prior to things starting. He talks a bunch, and loudly. He was on a rant awhile back about keeping paedocommunion out of the presbytery, comparing his part in the “battle” to Machen’s fight against liberalism. It was rich. But here’s the thing, when a a friend of mine went up for liscensure and said that he was “inclined toward paedocommunion” and was definately in favor of “young child communion” Greco didn’t say a word. He frequents a host of lists and message boards, and barks loudly on all of them. But who cares if isn’t willing to put up when it counts.
But yes, he does delight in being an ass. I don’t think he is more than an irritating true-keeper-of-the-flame romantic.
Back to lurking,
Tim Varner
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 11:41:57 -0600
From: “Steven Wright”
Subject: Mississippi Valley Presbytery’s denunciations?
OK, Per Joel’s request, here is the portion of the MSVP letter listing the 17 anathemas. Note that this is one l-o-n-g sentence:
“With regard to these new formulations, we find (1) views that assert that ‘final justification’ is a matter of performance not possession, and therefore based in some sense intrinsically rather than being wholly extrinsic; (2) views that assert that new discoveries regarding ‘Second Temple Judaism’ require us to reject or radically modify the Reformers’ and our Confesion’s understanding of the Pauline Gospel; (3) views that reject or radically modify the Confession’s presentation of the Bible’s teaching on imputation of Christ’s righteousness to believers (including the imputation of Christ’s active and passive obedience); (4) views which confuse infused and imputed righteousness, or which do not recognize the legitimacy of the important Bible and Confessional distinction between faith as ‘the alone instrument of justification’ and yet a faith which is ‘not alone in the person justified’; (5) views which reject the traditional bi-covenantal theology of the Westminster Confession (that is, views which do not merely take issue with the terminology but reject the essence of the bi-covenantal, covenant of works/covenant of grace framework of God’s dealings with humanity); (6) views that undermine the forensic aspect of justification by appeal to the ‘relational elements’ or which suggest that justification is primarily a matter of ecclesiology and less so soteriology; (7) views that categorically reject ‘merit’ in relation to the atoning work of Christ; (8) views which deny or undercut the biblical and theological legitimacy of the distinctions between true/nominal believers, the invisible/visible church, and the outward/inward aspects of the covenant of grace; (9) views that relate water baptism to regeneration in such a way as to suggest that water baptism (rather than that which it signifies) unites us to Christ; (10) views that suggest that justification in the NT always contemplates faith and the works of faith, or that deny that faith is uniquely receptive in the act of justification; (11) views that understand a believer’s ‘final justification’ to be a justifying verdict that embraces the believer’s covenantal obedience [and not a merely public declaration of the justification declared at the outset of the believer’s Christian experience]; (12) views that entail multiple instruments in justification (whether the terminology of ‘instrument’ is used or not); (13) views which posit the false antithesis of reading Scripture through the ‘lens of the covenant’ rather than the ‘lens of the decree;’ (14) views which cannot sustain the difference between the saving and common operations of the Spirit; (15) views of sacramental efficacy that speak of the salvific effects of baptism and the Lord’s supper, but fail to maintain adequately the crucial distinction between the sign and the thing signified; (16) views that suggest that water baptism conveys all the benefits of union with Christ, except for the ‘gift of perseverance’ and final salvation; (17) views which undermine the doctrine of the imputation of Adam’s sin or which call into question the doctrine of individual regeneration; — all of these and more, we find to be out of the bounds of acceptable diversity in this presbytery and in the PCA. As such they should not be taught or countenanced as part of the public teaching of the church.”
scw
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 11:46:58 -0600
From: “WAYNE LARSON”
Subject: Mississippi Valley Presbytery’s denunciations?
Funny, I was received into the Great Lakes Presbytery in 1998 with the paedocommunion exception — and I was told that I wasn’t the first. I know Fred was around then. (But internet chat rooms weren’t!) I received a little static but from a few guys but in the end I was unanimously received
Wayne
