Is the CREC analogous to Islam?
It appears for R. Scott Clark, Westminster Seminary California Professor and United Reformed Church Minister, the answer is “Yes”.
Find the comment here: Compromising Positions « The Confessional Outhouse
Is this too far? Is The Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches so far gone in their various theological positions that cannot even seen as part of the Christian Church, but rather on par with Islam?
March 26, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Oh, and Mormonism too now.
March 26, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Don’t get your panties in a bunch. Clarks point (at least as I read it) would have been made just as well (although not as inflammatorily) by comparing if you replace “Islam” with “megachurches” or “reality TV”. Popularity != Goodness.
March 26, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Yeesh! Pls Xcooz the grammar up thar! (or lack thereof)
March 26, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Ron,
I’m not a “ruling elder.” I’m a minister.
Re the point of the analogy, Rube is right. I agree, however, with many of the points that Todd Bordow made over at Green Baggins about the CRE. Any group that receives defrocked or about-to-be defrocked Reformed ministers (the CRE has done both) does not commend itself to confessional Reformed folk. Any group that affirms infant baptism AND the denial of the same does not commend itself to Reformed people. Any group that affirms paedocommunion does not commend itself to Reformed folk. Any group that tolerates error on fundamental Reformed doctrine such as the doctrine of justification and tolerates or encourages such latitudinarianism does not commend itself to Reformed people. What’s to like about the CRE? They sing psalms — which is a very good thing indeed!–and they believe the Bible, and they believe in predestination but that would also be true of other groups that we would not recognize as Reformed. We have to stop being so desperate for acceptance (like the ugly girl at the dance) that we’ll acknowledge anyone who makes the least nod to us as one of our own.
March 26, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I apologize for the error. I will make the correction.
March 26, 2008 at 2:38 pm
The CREC requires all their churches to subscribe to one of the following reformed confessions:
Westminster Confession of Faith (1647)
American Westminster Confession of Faith (1788)
Three Forms of Unity: a) Belgic Confession (1561); b) Heidelberg Catechism; c) Canons of Dort (1619)
The London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689)
The Savoy Declaration (1658)
The Reformed Evangelical Confession
I am not too familiar with the last one, but it can be found in Article X here: http://www.crechurches.org/infofiles/crecconstitution05rev.pdf
I don’t see anything particularly unreformed.
March 26, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Of course you don’t — you’ve got the Federal Vision! I keep telling you to go have that checked…
What sort of strange chimera is a “Baptist Federal Visionista”? Does such a beast exist?
March 26, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Not sure what you are talking about, Rube. Do you think the CREC is an FV denomination? It isn’t. It only doesn’t persecute FVers. There are plenty of CREC churches that aren’t FV. Some, as you can see from the list of available confessions, are Reformed Baptist.
March 26, 2008 at 3:43 pm
If someone provides hospitality to a suicide bomber would we say that one is merely “not persecuting” the bomber?
You guys want to take back whatever for Jesus but you’re latitudinarian about the gospel? That’s bizarre!
Don’t you have your priorities backwards?
March 26, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Dr. Clark. Of course, we do not see it that way.
First, I believe that the Gospel entails a transformation of all the creation, not just human souls. The First Adam brought curses upon creation and the Last Adam came to lift those curses. Jesus is the New Creator of the New Creation and He has commissioned His Body, the Church, to disciple the nations and teach them to obey God’s Law. So those who care nothing about transforming the culture are compromising the Gospel.
Secondly, of course we do not believe that preaching justification by a living, active, obedient faith in any way compromises the Gospel. Preaching he sort of faith that James says demons have, that compromises the Gospel.
Thanks again for stopping by. Grace and Peace in Christ.
March 26, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Ron, you keep asserting that as Christians we are called to disciple the nations and teach them to obey God’s law. To what extent are any of us capable of keeping God’s Law?
March 26, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Ron,
Is it true that the FV actually does in fact deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ?
After all, Paul says that if Christ has not been raised, you are still in your sins. The FV has publicly stated that we are still in our sins, therefore, the resurrection must not have taken place.
I’m very concerned about this myself. I think it’s just terrible to say that Christ has not been raised from the dead. But those poor misguided FV people have said as much.
Look, Ron, Christ HAS been raised, so we aren’t still in our sins. You should write a blog post about that, perhaps you can help straighten out those FV guys who are running around denying the resurrection. I bet they’d be glad to know that Christ has in fact been raised, and therefore we are no longer in our sins. After all, that’s great news, isn’t it? I think so.
So anyway, I’d like to see you write a post about that, about how Christ has arisen and how that proves that we aren’t in our sins anymore. Paul says as much in 1 Cor 15. It’s a really neat passage.
But I think you could really help your friends in the FV a lot if you’d write a post to convince them that Christ really did in fact raise from the dead. Somebody they trust needs to tell them, and I think that somebody is you. I think you’re up to it.
It’s just such a shame that they deny the resurrection.
Your friend in Christ,
Echo_ohcE
March 26, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Adam asks,
Just to the extent that God says we are able to:
If our Old Covenant fathers could obey God’s Law, how much more can we now that the Spirit has been poured out upon all flesh?
March 26, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Echo, Please keep arguing against the FV. You make it all the more credible with every comment you make against it. Thank you.
March 26, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Then Ron, Why the Gospel?
March 26, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Because through the disobedience of Adam, we all became sinners. Adam was *able* to keep God’s command, but he chose not to. Now, apart from the atonement, mankind bears the guilt of Adam’s ordinal sin along with all actual transgressions which proceed from it.
Jesus was incarnated, lived, died, and was resurrected so that we would be made righteous (Romans 5:18). This righteousness is applied to the believer by declaration of pardon in justification, and it is applied really and personally in sanctification.
Do you think Deuteronomy 30:11-14 is true or a lie?
March 27, 2008 at 7:30 am
Dr. Clark said:
Of course not! So, are you saying that someone like Doug Wilson is akin to a suicide bomber?
kazoo
March 28, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Party pooper!
April 3, 2008 at 10:58 am
Also, “the law” includes within it the means of restoration when you mess up. An Israelite was not “blameless before the law” because he was a perfect person with impeccable moral character who never sinned in any way shape or form. He was “blameless” because he, by God’s grace and through trusting in Him, received God’s law with gladness, endeavored to keep it, and offered the appropriate sacrifices when he messed up. But offering those sacrifices was PART of the law.
Now, we can abastract “the law” to mean “live without sin.” Certainly, God commands us not to sin and He doesn’t want us to sin. And no FVer says that it is possible to be morally perfect (to never sin). That’s not what we mean when we say that it is possible to “keep the law.”
In Christ, by God’s grace, His people are law-keepers. They aren’t perfect, but they confess their sins and God is gracoius and faithful to forgive them their sins. Which is all, of course, part of “the law.”
So, yes, we can be acceptable to God. Not in some meriotious, pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps way. But in the sense that God has given us a guide for our life (which includes what to “do” when we mess it up), and we are capable of enthusiastically applying it.
Of course, we are still sinners, so we do mess up all the time. We forget what God tells us to do in His law, or we just don’t care. Which is why we need to ask for forgiveness (which only comes in Christ). But when we do so, we are “keeping the law”, “remaining faithful to the covenant,” etc. The way to be “faithful to the covenant” is by continuing to cling to Christ alone in faith (which includes repenting for our sins, as all Reformed folks say).
April 3, 2008 at 11:04 am
And “doesn’t recommend itself” is an incredibly vague criticism. Reformed people shouldn’t go there? They’re sinning if they do? It just isn’t wise, all things considered? They are going to Hell? What?
Of course, a denomination that attempts to include two groups who have historically been institutionally divided (paedobaptists and credobaptists) is a BAD thing…It dishonors the legacy of all those previous generations who stayed divided with each other. Who is the CREC to come along and say it might have been possible for them all to get along together for the sake of the Gospel?
Finally, we’re all still waiting for a valid argument that FVers get “justification” wrong in any fundamentally important sense. Lots of words have been spilled, but to little demonstration thus far on that score.
The farthest the discussion has advanced is that some FVers (not even all of them) believe in a “temporary justification” for non-elect covenant members. How that contradicts some fundamental element of Reformed orthodoxy, and even if it did, how it makes FVers any worse in Dr. Clark’s eyes than Lutherans, is unclear. Why aren’t we just close-but-not-quite-there brothers from the Reformation tradition? Why can’t we come on the White Horse Inn as a fourth option (wacky Reformed, Reformed Baptist, Westminster West Reformed, and Lutheran)?
If we’re “heretics” in some sense more nefarious than simply “technically, you don’t comport with our confession in this denom, so we wish you the best in ministering somewhere else,” then I haven’t seen it shown even on the most rabid anti-FV accounts. Not that I’m going to get an answer here; just sayin’….
April 5, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Thanks, Xon. We are a PCA and we have some baptist members. The best way to convince someone of your position is not to tell them to go worship over there. I think many a padeo baptist was made by observing children in worship with their families.