Clark Quick Quote

“In describing the nature of faith, fundamentalists, evangelicals, and even modernists in a certain way, stress the element of trust … A preacher may draw a parallel between trusting in Christ and trusting in a chair. Belief that the chair is solid and comfortable, mere intellectual assent to such a proposition will not rest your weary bones. You must, the preacher insists, actually sit in the chair. Or, as another minister recently said, mere belief that a bank is safe and sound will not protect your cash or give you any interest.  You must actually put your money in the bank. Similarly, so goes the argument, you can believe all that the Bible says about Christ and it will do you no good.  Such illustrations as these are constantly used, in spite of the fact that the Bible itself says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”

There is here at least a lack of analysis, a confounding of something Scriptural and something that is not, a failure to equate two sides of an analogy. The weak point of such illustrations is that they compare faith with the physical act of sitting in a chair and distinguish it from belief. Belief in Christ does not rest your weary bones, for belief is mere assent. In addition you must actually sit down or deposit your money in the bank. But this analogy does not hold. The distinction between believing that a chair is comfortable and the act of sitting in it is perfectly obvious. But in the spiritual realm there is no physical action; there is mental action only: hence the act of sitting down, if it means anything at all, must refer to something completely internal, and yet different from belief. Belief that the chair has been made to stand for belief in Christ, and according to the illustration belief in Christ does not save. Something else is needed. But what is this something else that corresponds to the physical act of sitting down?  This is the question that is seldom if ever answered. The evangelists put all their stress on sitting down, but never identify its analogue.” Religion, Reason, and Revelation 95-96.

Coffin Nails

One man’s coffin nail could be the hinge pin keeping the PCA from going over the abyss.

Jason Stellman’s flirtation with the Roman church-state right in the middle of his halfhearted prosecution of fellow closeted Roman Catholic, Peter Leithart, could be the means by which the PCA reverses its decision affirming Leithart’s gross heresy as being within the bounds of the Westminster Confession, even his rejection of justification by faith alone and imputation.

Three PCA presbyteries that still believe that the Gospel is worth fighting for have “approved an overture requesting the General Assembly to assume original jurisdiction over TE Peter Leithart, a teaching elder member of Pacific Northwest Presbytery.”  This means that the PCA’s GA could retry the Leitheart case on the basis that there was a “conflict of interest” given the fact that Jason Stellman was a virtual Romanist while he was prosecuting another virtual Romanist.  No kidding.

Now, I have little hope that the PCA will come to its senses, reverse itself, and turn things around.  After all, the OPC’s GA made a similar error declaring Shepherdite and Federal Vision heretic John Kinnaird to be within the bounds of Westminster orthodoxy and refused to reverse itself despite similar protests.  The funny thing is that those in the OPC view themselves, even to this day, as stalwarts of the Reformed faith.  The blemish of the Kinnaird decision is simply ignored as OPC TEs tell themselves, and anyone dumb enough to listen, that they did the right thing given the “circumstances.”   Hogwash.  That might be enough for a small, even micro, Presbyterian denomination like the OPC, but the PCA has a bigger tent to protect.

My guess it is that overtures such as these calling on the PCA’s GA  to reverse the miscarriage of justice when it exonerated Leithart are nothing more than spitting in the wind.   But, sometime what sounds like death rattles are actually gasps for breath.  Besides, I have to think that Peter Leithart, assuming he has even a remote sense of decency and is not as amoral as he is heretical, would simply leave the PCA for his current home in the proto-papist CREC where he labors.  I have to think being such a despised man by those he wants to pretend are his “brothers” has to be, at the very least, uncomfortable.  Let’s hope he comes to his senses first and leaves the PCA as the PCA GA has already proven itself incapable of correctly identifying a man that is not even a Christian.

You can read the complete overture here, but if you’re content just with the meaty stuff here it is:

Whereas, the chief prosecutor in the Pacific Northwest case, former TE Jason Stellman, has subsequently tendered his resignation from PCA ministry and has joined the communion of the Roman Catholic church;

Whereas, the chief prosecutor admits publically, that “in the midst of this process,” (referring to the prosecution of Mr. Leithart and the appeal to the SJC) he started considering the claims of “the gospel and justification and the covenant from the perspective of Catholics…and this was the nail in the coffin that slew me.”

Whereas, the charges brought against Mr. Leithart by the chief prosecutor specifically deal with gospel and justification from the perspective of the Westminster Standards (which teach that sola fide is the material principle of the Protestant Reformation);

Whereas, the chief prosecutor’s shift toward the very doctrines that he attempts to prosecute TE Leithart for holding creates an astounding conflict of interest, despite his best efforts at objectivity;

Therefore, be it resolved that Calvary, Gulf Coast and Mississippi Presbyteries overture the 41^st General Assembly to:

Assume original jurisdiction and direct the Standing Judicial Commission to hear “Pacific Northwest Presbytery vs. Peter Leithart,” because PNWP has “refused to act,” per the provision found in BCO 34-1, by not declaring a mistrial in this case because of its chief prosecutor’s conflict of interest, stemming from his transition into membership of the Roman Catholic church.  SJC not fail to take into consideration the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms in hearing the case.

Building A Scripturalist Church

A reader of this blog, David Reece, has had it on his mind for a long time to start a church based on Scripturalist principles.  In fact, he has taken the first steps by calling believers in the Phoenix area to come join his efforts. To that end he provided his contact information in the combox of this blog.  So, if you are in the Phoenix area and this sounds like something you might want to be a part of you can contact David at dcreece (at) gmail (dot) com.  Besides, with the PCA imploding before our eyes the time might be ripe for such a project. 

Now, admittedly, when David contacted me in the past my own interest in the project has been quite low.  As I explained to David, I just don’t have the time or the resources to devote myself to being involved in the founding of a church, much less a new denomination. I don’t know all that it will take, but I think I would just be happy just with more Clark friendly churches.  Besides, I don’t see the need for a Scripturalist church any more than I would think there should be Van Tillian churches (which is something the OPC has sought to become even to this day where well placed and influential Van Tillians have even tried to block the admission of Dr. Robert Reymond into their clique).

Besides, the last attempt I saw at a supposedly “Scripturalist” church was Drake Shelton’s white supremacist anti-trinitarian church complete with a phony website with Clark’s picture prominently displayed.  Needless to say with friends like these….   Thankfully, the extent of this  ”church” remains something that exists only in Drake’s racist Christ denying mind and he said he removed all references to Clark on his website.  Let’s hope he keeps it that way.

I think my concern is that Scripturalism is a philosophy, not an institution.  That’s not to say that Scripturalism shouldn’t inform all institutions and not just churches.  But, I think if Clark’s philosophy was simply understood as Clark understood it then its application to the founding of a church or an entire denomination would be immediately appealing to even those with little familiarity with Clark.  Every church should be based on Scripturalist principles as Scripture alone, which rightly understood includes every necessary inference we might draw from Scripture, should be the underlying principle that informs how every church is governed and structured.  That’s not Scriputralist per se but confessional and specifically the Westminster variety.  In fact, and as many here already know, it was John Robbins who coined the term “Scripturalism” to describe the presuppositional and uniquely biblical philosophy of Gordon Clark.  On the other hand, Clark was not so much interested in a descriptive name for his system and even referred to it as anything from the unflattering “Dogmatism” to the highly appealing description he gave it during his exchange with George Mavordes calling it “the Westminster principle.”

So what would a church founded on the Westminster principle look like? Interesting, David reminded me of a piece John Robbins wrote back in 1989 simply title, “The Church.” In the piece John fleshes out a number of underlying principles that are frankly arresting when you compare them to most current Protestant denominations.  I think the most revolutionary aspect of the biblical picture John paints, and where it is sure to receive the most resistance, is that it takes direct aim at the professional pastor class.  John writes:

The next observation that I wish to make is that all the teachers in the church are to be paid: Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treads out the corn. Paul did not ordinarily receive compensation from the churches he helped establish, but he was quite clear in asserting the propriety and the duty of paying teachers according to their competence and diligence. Today many churches pay only one teacher, the minister or priest or pastor, and if they are large enough his associate, his secretary, the janitor, the choir director, and maybe the organist. But that is not what Paul commands. All the oxen, all the teachers, especially those who do their job well and eagerly, are to be paid. That does not mean that they must live solely from the fruits of their labor in the church, but it does mean that their work is to be recognized as valuable by the congregation.

If men are to be elected from the congregation as teachers, chances are they will already have another job by which they can support themselves should the congregation fire them. This would have several beneficial side-effects. If teachers are not completely dependent upon the congregation for their livelihood, they might be less apt to suppress truths that the congregation does not want to hear. Second, if the teachers can partially support themselves, the congregation will be able to support all the teachers according to their competence and diligence. Rather than paying one large salary to one man, the congregation will be able to pay smaller salaries to several men.

This division of labor would have several additional benefits: First, it would tend to reduce burnout. No one man would be expected to carry the load for the church. Second, it would ensure that the church would continue its purpose uninterruptedly should one teacher resign, die, or become involved in a scandal. Third, it would reduce the personality cult and conflict that sometimes cause people to attend and to leave the church because they like or do not like the pastor or the way he preaches. There would be no central figure to like or dislike. There are many more additional benefits from having a plurality of teachers, some of which may not become obvious until it is tried. It is difficult to imagine all the ramifications of a system of church organization that has not been tried in modern times.

Of course, while the above is certainly attractive, what then of all those M.Div. degrees?  What then becomes of seminaries that feed the denominations with pastors trained in the philosophic leanings and theological tendencies, if not peculiarities, of a specific seminary?   John finds a solution for this too:

This plurality of teachers was the common practice of the apostolic church. Acts 14:23 says that Paul and Barnabas appointed elders in every church. Plural, not singular. One kind of leader, not two, three, four or five. There were no bishops, no right reverends, no cardinals, no archbishops-and certainly no popes. Elders, we are told in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus l, are to be teachers. There was no such thing as a ruling elder who did not teach in the apostolic church order. There is only one set of requirements for the office of elder, and an elder is to be able to teach. Paul did not require seminary training of some elders and not for others. Nor, and this is also very important, was there a teacher who was not ordained. This is because the only way of ruling in the church is by teaching.

Notice, there is no such thing as a “ruling elder” and the only way of “ruling in the church is by teaching.”  That’s not to say that a seminary education is of no value, it’s just not required.  Again, and for anyone familiar with modern ecclesiastic polity and church structure this is earth shattering. There is no need to call this model of church government and structure “Scripturalist,” because it must be so offensive to the pride of men who have worked so hard and have been called to pastor a church that it would be rejected outright no matter what you call it.  Calling it “Scripturalist” only makes it that much easier for the professional pastoring class to dismiss it.  Besides, if what John is describing is a picture of a biblical church the message to pastors reading it is to get a “real job.”  On the other hand, if John is correct, and I think for the most part he is, then the biblical model of the church is far more organic and “ground up” rather than “top down” than anyone could have imagined.

Clark Quick Quote

I travel a lot for work and while I loath the constant violations of my forgotten Constitutional rights at our nation’s airports where rubber gloved blue-shirts are “securing the homeland” by patting down my crotch, the planes themselves provide a great opportunity to catch up on some reading.  On a recent trip I finally decided to wade into Augustine’s tome; City of God.  At first it was interesting how 4th Century Christians needed to defend themselves against those clamoring for a return to idol worship.  I confess after more than 200 pages of this I was ready to quit. I’m told somewhere in the remaining 800 pages it gets better and is even life changing.  However, on my last little hop to Kansas via a quick stop in Memphis, I decided to take with me an old favorite, Religion, Reason and Revelation.  Clark is the first and may be the only Christian scholar that I’ve ever read who views David Hume as an unwitting hero of the faith. On a little side note, while in college I took a course on the history of philosophy. The professor’s opening lecture included the promise that if anyone in the class harbored any belief in God he would rid it from our minds using Hume as his tool. I only wish I had Clark in college:

Therefore, those who defend a cosmological argument without stating what it is must be challenged to answer several objections that would seem to apply to any formulation.  No doubt it is David Hume who, quite apart from his strictures on the principle of causality, has best expressed those objections.  But since Hume was such a vicious antagonist of Christianity, his name is anathema to believers, and they are irrationally inclined to assume the falsity of all he said.  The reverse may be closer to the truth. It may be perfectly correct in arguing that the existence of God cannot be demonstrated on the basis of sensory experience. And if this is so, Christians should thank him for pointing out a procedure that ends only in embarrassment for them.  Hence, Hume’s arguments should be examined without any prejudice that he could not possibly have been right.

. . . The cosmological argument, however, requires that the universe as a whole be an effect.  But no observation of parts of the universe can give this necessary assumption.  To be quite clear about it, no one has ever seen the universe as a whole.

Then next, even if it could be proved that the universe is an effect, there is another extremely serious difficulty, though it is but a particular application of Hume’s first point.  The first point was the principle that no characteristics can be ascribed to the cause beyond those necessary to produce the effects by which alone the cause is known.  Now, the observed effects include many evils, disasters, tragedies  and what the Christian calls sin. These can be listed in terrifying profusion.  They have been so listed and used against Christianity both by Hume and John Stuart Mill, as well as by more cynical writers like Voltaire.  These manifest evils, from congenitally deformed infants to the torture chambers of Nazis and Communists, prevent a conclusion that the cause of the world is good.  The cosmological argument totally fails to prove the existence of a just and merciful God.  To be sure, it allows — though it does not prove — the existence of a good god, but only on the assumption that he is neither omnipotent nor the cause of all that happens.  But the cosmological argument was supposed to deal with the universal cause. As a recourse for Christian theism, therefore, the cosmological argument is worse than useless. In fact, Christians can be pleased at its failure, for if it were valid, it would prove a conclusion inconsistent with Christianity.

It is most unfortunate that a large section of conservative Protestantism is unwilling to discuss the justice of God and its relation to the evils of the world.  There are devout individuals who seem to suppose that a discussion of evil may put wrong ideas into young heads. Any attempt to explain evil, they hold, is unsettling to the faith. In this they are disobedient to their own standard, the Bible; and beyond this, their viewpoint implies that Voltaire, Hume, Mill, and other opponents of Christianity are, and will remain, unknown. These well-meaning individuals do not realize that Hume’s arguments have been public property since 1776; that millions of people have rejected Christianity because of them; and to stop this loss it is a Christian duty to meet them squarely. This, I believe, can be done. The problem of evil is not insoluble. But the solution does not depend on rehabilitating the cosmological argument (39-41).

Last Hurrah

Therefore, the undersigned complains that Pacific Northwest Presbytery acted unconstitutionally on April 27, 2012 in denying the October 18, 2011 complaint of RE Wesley Witt versus Pacific Northwest Presbytery, in their adopting the report of the court’s Standing Judicial Commission on October 7, 2011. This egregious and unconstitutional error permits TE Peter Leithart, who is flagrantly out of accord with the Westminster Standards, to teach and publish his false doctrines with impunity. We further complain that this action of PNWP undermines the Westminster Standards and the system of doctrine taught in the Scripture.

Read the preceding here.

Overture asks PCA General Assembly to Direct SJC to Rehear the Leithart Case

Illiana Presbytery requests the 41st General Assembly to direct the Standing Judicial Commission to rehear case 2012-05 (RE Gerald Hedman v. Pacific Northwest Presbytery)

You can read the rest here.

Crocodile Tears

Now that Jason Stellman is getting comfortable settling into his new home in the Roman church-state, he recently had time to reflect.  He titled his piece “When I Find Myself in Times of Trouble. . .” after the title track from the Beatles Let It Be album.  And, for that one person living under a rock who can’t complete the lyric it goes; “Mother Mary comes to me, Speaking words of wisdom, Let it be.”  Clever, huh?  Well, not really, but Stellman would like you to think so.  Stellman’s piece is really just a long complaint about how mean and nasty Calvinists have been since his rejection of the God of Scripture and the Gospel.  Stellman writes:

In the last ten months (indeed, in the last ten hours) I have been called an apostate and a heretic, guilty of high treason against Jesus Christ for defecting from the gospel (as well as having been called “lacking in common decency” for seeking to explain and defend myself). I have been accused of deliberately losing the Leithart trial to which I dedicated four years of my life, and of soliciting funds for the trial under false pretenses and then stealing them for my own enrichment. And these accusations (and many others) occur on numerous Reformed blogs and are rarely if ever corrected, and the accusers rarely if ever warned, by the pastors and professors who operate those blogs. I’m sure those who say such things (often under the convenient shield of anonymity and pseudonyms) would insist that I deserve this and brought it on myself. Maybe they are right, but it doesn’t change the fact that I feel each of these insults very deeply, and have daily for the last ten months.

I haven’t counted, but I think I have may have accused Stellman of all those thing and then some.  Yet, in his entire victim statement he never once takes any responsibility for how completely he betrayed those who looked to him as even a leader in the cause of the Gospel, particularly given his prominence in the Leithart case, a case he tried while in the process of solidifying his defection to Rome.  Stellman also cried these same crocodile tears on Lane Keister’s Greenbaggins blog exclaiming:

By the way, it’s equally plausible that the reason the prosecution lost is because Mike Horton sucked, or because the trial commission was biased and rigged from the outset, or because Lane got his degree in piano-playing, or because Rayburn played dirty, or because the PCA doesn’t have the stones to enforce its own FV Report. It could be a combination of those things, or none of them, or something else altogether. We’ll never really know. All I can say is that I conducted the case (to which I was appointed, by the way) exactly how I would have if I had never heard of Catholicism. Those issues were completely sealed off in an airtight compartment and never crossed my mind during the trial or during my prep for it. You can choose to believe me or not, but my conscience is clean.

Again, I find it interesting that Stellman takes absolutely no responsibility for his failure to successfully prosecute the case.  Nowhere does he even do any “arm chair quarterbacking” wondering out loud how he may have done things differently.  For instance, maybe he should have recused himself early one when his first realized the liked having his ears tickled by papists trolls at the “Called to Confusion” website?  Or, seeing he is perfectly content with the job he did during the trial, perhaps he could have reflected a little on how he might have done things differently after the trial?  I was honestly shocked when I learned immediately following the not guilty verdict at the presbytery level that Stellman wasn’t going to file a complaint with the Standing Judicial Commission.  Instead he left that job for someone else.  Is it possible that the complaint would have carried more weight with those on the SJC had Stellman been the one making it?  Besides, I don’t know of one person who thought the outcome of the Leithart trial would have been any different at the presbytery level even if Stellman did the first rate job he thinks he did.  Everyone knew that the real trial wasn’t going to be decided at presbytery, but in the General Assembly.

At the time I wondered why Stellman would leave the battlefield right at the point when the real battle was about to begin. Concerning the complaint that was filed with the GA, Stellman told me;  ”with the exception of actually signing the thing, I pretty much did everything else.”   I had no idea at the time that he was already deeply involved in his adultery with Rome, so I couldn’t fathom why he was unwilling to follow through and complete the task before him to the point where he wouldn’t even put his name on the complaint.  At the time I thought it was very strange, even disturbing  but as they say hindsight is 20/20. Sure, the SJC’s complete failure to correctly adjudicate the most important heresy trial in the entire history of the PCA could have been due to some or even all of the things Stellman mentions above.  Yes, the PCA “doesn’t have the stones to enforce its own FV Report.” And, yes, I will even concede Stellman could have kept his whole adulterous affair with Rome “sealed off in an airtight compartment” the entire time. However, I was struck by something Ron DiGiacomo said on Lane’s blog;

[Peter Leithart] essentially denied on the stand what FV has gone on record affirming. All that is left to do at that point is to pepper the defendant with questions regarding inconsistency in view of previously written (or stated) Roman Cahtolic tendencies. That did not happen and that was Jason’s job. Consequently, the SJC was left with too many uninterpreted brute particulars that were not fleshed out with formal argumentation. Again, to have drawn their own conclusions based upon arguments that were never formulated would have been to put PL on trial without the right of a defense attorney. We’re Presbyterian not papists.

As I told Stellman on Lane’s blog, I don’t hate him. Unlike some others, I don’t respect him and feel sorry for him. He has traded true liberty in Jesus Christ for the abject slavery and superstition of Rome. I explained that what bothers me is his complete lack of humility even after he first came out of the closet and confessed his rejection of Christ and His Gospel. If he could be so wrong about the central tenets of the Christian faith, even justification by faith alone, and after spending years as an ordained minister of the Gospel, along with being the lead prosecutor in the most important case in the history of the PCA, what makes him so confident now?  How can he sing Beatles tunes to himself while telling himself and anyone who will listen that everything is alright? Instead of simply disappearing into the woodwork as common decency would dictate, especially given the scandal of his defection, he as become the proud ubiquitous Internet poster-boy for “Called to Confusion” and is now a very public shill for the papacy. So, I confess, this victim game Stellman is now playing strikes me as exceedingly hollow.  I think someone who goes simply by “Robert” in the combox on Stellman’s blog summed it up best:

Surely there is plenty of arrogance to go around. Obviously that is not an excuse, but for Rome to be calling Protestants arrogant and mean is really the pot calling the kettle black.

Your entire post smacks of an “I’m the victim, here,” as if you are absolutely shocked that anyone would think you might have not done a good job with Leithart because of your being pulled to Rome. Quite frankly, I think anyone who accuses you of deliberately throwing the case just isn’t thinking clearly. On the other hand, I also think you are naive to believe that your dalliances with Rome were having absolutely no effect on your prosecution of the case. Try as we might, we never effectively compartmentalize our lives totally and fully.

Right or wrong, the Reformed, especially, see themselves as the guardians of orthodoxy. You better believe you are going to get push back when you leave the Reformed tradition for its traditional “foe” . . . if you have indeed accepted the Roman gospel hook, line, and sinker, then we cannot be true to our theological tradition (not to mention Scripture) except but to say you have apostatized. Historically, Rome said the same thing but in reverse, or have you forgotten the excommunication of Luther and all the bulls against Protestantism. Much of the Roman Catholicism you have embraced is not the Roman Catholicism of the Crusades and the Inquisition but the kindler, gentler, but no less arrogant Romanism of Vatican II that wants to say all Christians are really Roman Catholics but they’re just clueless to know it.

Of course an inclusivistic church is going to seem “kinder and gentler.” That’s because it really stands for nothing. Sure, you have a lot of Roman lay apologists, including yourself, your commenters, and groups like Catholic Answers made up mainly of Protestants who have swum the Tiber for a romanticized Romanism. But it is really difficult to believe the infallible Magisterium cares about truth—or even the primacy of Christ—when it affirms that Muslims, who deny the incarnation and Trinity, worship the same God; when the Roman pontiff kisses the Qur’an; when the Magisterium moves pedophiles around for decades and only stops when the civil authorities take notice; when it does not even try to stop pilgrims from camping out before office buildings where someone has seen the reflection of the Virgin Mary in a glass skyscraper; when Latin American Roman Catholic Churches continue to withhold the cup from the laity; when rank heretics teach theology for decades in Roman institutions; when nothing is done about Roman Catholic politicians who promote mortal sins; and I could go on.

No one is looking for a perfect church. We’re just looking for a church that has some evidence that it believes what it says.

By its very nature, truth is divisive. Jesus came to bring the sword, to separate families and people based on their allegiance to Him. It is laughable that your communion, which believes itself historically to be the one true church, has basically ended up saying in recent years that it doesn’t matter what truth you believe because as long as you are a mostly good person, you can be saved.

Rome is “humble” because its official leaders do not really stand for much anymore. The squishiness of Rome is the perfect fit for the postmodern “your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth” attitude. I can be a hardcore traditionalist or promote birth control and abortion, and I can find a home in Rome. Isn’t that lovely.

Two men went up into the cathedral to pray, one a Roman Catholic . . . . The Roman Catholic, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, proud, arrogant, mean, or even like this Reformed Protestant. I confess my mortal sins to the priest; I make pilgrimmages to see relics; I adore the host; I wear the scapular and recite the rosary; I count on my humility as part of the ground for my justification.’