Book Review
The Practice of Confessional Subscription, David W. Hall, Editor. Published in 1995 by University Press of America, Inc. 4720 Boston Way, Lanham, MD 20706. 233 pages. $42.50 (but available for $34.00 + $3.00 postage to readers of Ordained Servant from: Dr. David W. Hall, The Kuyper Institute, 190 Manhattan Ave., Oak Ridge, TN 37830). Reviewed by the editor.
How tight should the binding of ministers, elders and deacons be to the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, in Presbyterian Churches? That is the question. And the eighteen Reformed writers—past and present— who speak in this symposium do not quite see eye to eye in giving their answers to this question. There is, however, a basic unity here. None of these contributors want that binding to be too loose while, at the same time, they all admit that there has to be at least some room for conscientious exception to the exact wording of the Westminster Standards. So, in the end, the entire book is devoted to wrestling with the difficult problem of how to allow some room for conscience while retaining a real commitment as a church to these superb documents.
As I interact with these writers it seems to me that they all more or less agree with B. B. Warfield’s warning that “too strict subscription overreaches itself and becomes little better than no subscription” at all (p. 135). It encourages mental reservation, the very thing that the church should seek to avoid. It is for this reason that several contributors stress the need for men to be encouraged—and expected— to fully and frankly express any reservations they may have so that Presbyteries can judge whether or not they are tolerable. It is right there, of course, that “the rubber meets the road” and, in the opinion of this reviewer, there is no way to avoid this.
So the ultimate question becomes: how much may the church tolerate without undermining its own confessional unity and witness? Should a minister, for example, be allowed to publicly preach and/or teach any views that are contrary to this or that teaching of the Westminster Standards? If he does differ from these Standards at some point should he be required to keep this to himself, or should he be permitted to preach and teach it so long as he is honest enough to identify it as a private or personal opinion as over against the Confessional stand of the Church? It is in this area that there are some interesting and provocative contributions in this symposium. T. David Gordon’s use of a distinction between joint and several powers in the church is one such effort (though I am not entirely satisfied with it).
To this reviewer at least, one thing emerges from this symposium as the primary lesson (and the chapter contributed by John R. Muether—printed by kind permission in this issue of Ordained Servant— illustrates the point quite clearly). No one has yet come up with a formula that will guarantee Confessional faithfulness, and I do not expect that any one will. The reason is quite simple. The primary safeguard of a church’s orthodoxy is not found in any formula, important as this is, but in the integrity of the men who use the formula. Great churches, with excellent forms, have fallen away from the faith. And there are churches with imperfect forms that have kept the faith. I am not in any way suggesting that we do not need good forms of sound words, and even less am I suggesting that what we have is necessarily the best that we could have. It is for this reason that discussions of this matter along the lines presented in this book are valuable. But the bottom line, in my opinion is this: no form of subscription will ever be devised that will work for any length of time unless our Presbyteries continue to be diligent in upholding the Church’s Confessional Standards.
This is a timely and fascinating book. I heartily recommend it. I would add that we should indeed be thankful to God for the generally high level of integrity in this matter, so far, in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
G. I. Williamson is editor of Ordained Servant.