Giving the PCA the Bird

I do not plan to spend any considerable time combing through and analyzing the various Leithart trial documents.  What’s the point? One PCA presbytery after another have now stated in unambiguous terms that the Federal Vision, which maintains a scheme of salvation premised on faith and works as the direct result of their conditional view of the covenant, is perfectly within the bounds of the historic Reformed faith.  In the case of the Pacific Northwest Presbytery the commissioners charged with adjudicating the Leithart case ( Brad Chaney, Eric Costa, Ron Gonzales, Mike Kelly, Eddie Koh, Dirk Carlson, Mike Pfefferle, Brian Sunderland, and Steve O’Ban) unanimously concluded:

The Court is convinced that a covenantal perspective, such as the defendant’s, which does not contradict the Standards of this Church or their foundation in the Word of God is a legitimate and edifying way of looking at the life of faith, and a very helpful complement to the Westminster Assembly’s largely decretal perspective on our salvation.

Think about that, the Federal Vision, the same Federal Vision which the 2006 PCA FV/NPP report condemned as striking at the “vitals of the faith,” is here commended by these spiritually dead commissioners as “a very helpful complement to the Westminster Assembly’s largely decretal perspective on our salvation.”  What complete and utter hogwash.  These men are as shameful as they come along with every other PNWP presbyter that voted to uphold the commission’s “not guilty” verdict.

I know, calling a bunch of PCA TEs and REs “spiritually dead,” even mentioning these men by name, is over the top, right?  If I were ever stupid enough to return to the PCA fold I’d be brought up on charges, right?  Well, here are just two paragraphs penned by Leithart offered in his own defense before the court and in answer to the charges laid against him:

Adam and everyone since have been called to a faith that works, a faith that produces fruit in good works. Neither Adam nor anyone since has done meritorious works, earning God’s favor. There is “law” and “grace through faith” in every covenant. This is what I meant by my statement that pre- and post-fall, all human beings have been called to the “obedience of faith.”

Adam and everyone since have been called to “covenant faithfulness.” I use this term to describe saving faith because I believe it captures various dimensions of the biblical, and Confessional, portrait of faith. “Covenant faithfulness” as I use it means trust in God the Savior that expresses itself in obedience and loyalty to God and that perseveres until the end. I find the phrase a handy way to summarize the teaching of WCF 14, 16, 17, 33.1.

According to Leithart the “obedience of faith”  is not the simple act of believing the truth of the Gospel, it is the combination of doing the law by “grace through faith” and this, says Leithart,  is the operating principle in “every covenant” (emphasis Leithart’s).  This is the same principle Leithart’s employer, Doug Wilson, affirmed in his shrill polemic against the Christian faith; Reformed Is Not Enough: Recovering the Objectivity of the Covenant.   According to Wilson, “breaking covenant occurs because of unbelief, lack of faith, and because of lack of good works” (134), and fulfilling the conditions of the covenant occurs by faith and good works.  Leithart agrees.  Good works are required in order to be saved both before and after the fall.  Similarly, saving faith is not altogether passive “receiving and resting on him and his righteousness,” but consists in the combination of “trust in God the Savior” along with our ongoing “obedience and loyalty to God.”  Calling works non-meritorious is misleading.  Whether they’re meritorious or not, works are still works.   Further, this combination of works and faith can only save provided they “perseveres until the end,” or in what Federal Visionists call “final justification” according to works.

What saves us, according to Leithart, and how saving faith is defined, is not assenting to the finished work of Jesus Christ alone completely outside of us, but rather it is the combination of good works wrought in us by faith.  Covenant faithfulness, not faith alone, is the way of salvation according to Leithart and his fellow Federal Visionists along with those who found him not guilty.  What could be clearer?  Leithart has been consistent on this point and completely unambiguous in his testimony before the court, yet the commissioners of the PNWP, along with the men who voted in favor of their verdict to exonerate, think this is “a legitimate and edifying way of looking at the life of faith, and a very helpful complement to the Westminster Assembly’s largely decretal perspective on our salvation.”  I think calling these men spiritually dead is perhaps too charitable.

* Pictured above (click to enlarge) are the attendees of the 2008 Auburn Avenue Pastor’s Conference where speakers Peter Leithart, Doug Wilson, Steve Wilkins and Jeffrey Meyers all gave the PCA’s highest court  the proverbial middle finger just like the men of the PNWP have done once again in their exoneration of Leithart.         

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