Presbyterianism (Blessings of the Faith), by Sean Michael Lucas. P&R, 2025, 136 pages, $15.99.

Pastors, seminarians, and church members may not read John Frame’s provocative essay, “Machen’s Warrior Children,” anymore, but its sentiments still capture an important dynamic in the conservative Presbyterian world (mainly the OPC and PCA). Almost twenty-five years ago, Frame wrote his criticism of the infighting that in his estimation characterized conservative Presbyterianism after J. Gresham Machen’s death and the formation of the OPC. At the time, Orthodox Presbyterians, if General Assembly reports are any indication, were debating women serving in the military, acceptable views of creation, and the Federal Vision. Perhaps Frame had these disputes in mind when he wrote, “The Machen movement was born in the controversy over liberal theology.” He conceded that contending against liberal theology was commendable. But “martial impulses” characterized conservative Presbyterianism and carried over into church life even after liberalism stood condemned. “Being in a church without liberals to fight,” Frame observed, conservative Presbyterians “turned on one another.” This interpretation of Presbyterian history divided the Reformed world into the fighters and the easy-goers, or the mean and the nice.

That fault line seems to persist in NAPARC circles, if Sean Michael Lucas’s Presbyterianism for the P&R Publishing series Blessings of the Faith is any indication. Instead of approaching the topic in a way that necessarily involves differentiating Presbyterianism from other versions of Protestantism on doctrinal, ecclesiological, and liturgical grounds, Lucas chooses a softer approach. His overriding theme, as the book’s series has it, is that Presbyterianism is good for you—it is a blessing of the Christian faith. This is not quite an “eat-your-broccoli” approach, though Lucas’s case for Presbyterianism lacks the pizzaz and zowie of the writings of John Calvin, John Knox, and Samuel Rutherford. Lucas recommends Presbyterianism on the grounds that nothing could be more beneficial for believers than to have a sound congregation with church officers who care about members and their families. As Lucas writes in his introduction, “my goal is to persuade you that Presbyterianism is good for you, for your soul, for your family and ultimately for God’s church and the world” (16).

To do this, Lucas takes what this reader considered a strikingly indirect approach. Instead of looking directly at New Testament patterns of church government (or the long and detailed debates in Protestant history over councils and bishops), Lucas chooses the Trinity as the frame for understanding Presbyterianism. Under God the Father, he tackles the doctrine of predestination admirably with a substantial explanation of God’s sovereignty. This approach allows Lucas to include the doctrines of creation and providence in consideration of God’s sovereignty. What makes this distinctly Presbyterian is not entirely clear except that many Christians associate Calvinism with predestination. The topic Christ the Son leads to a discussion of the lordship of Christ and how such rule is mediated through the church and her officers. Lucas also explains the work of elders as shepherds, their authority over doctrine, worship, and discipline, and their collective rule through presbyteries. In the chapter on the Holy Spirit, Lucas uses the recently popular topic of ordinariness to describe the church as a fundamentally ordinary enterprise. He writes, “As this ordinary church gathers and ordinary men and women are served by an ordinary ministry, they find that God works through ordinary means” (86). Throughout, Lucas explains that the Holy Spirit accomplishes an extraordinary salvation through ordinary means. This chapter is not so much an explanation of Presbyterianism but an appeal to Presbyterians to acknowledge and appreciate the unremarkable character of their churches.

Because Presbyterianism has a track record of militancy—from the Covenanters to twentieth-century defenses of Calvinism over against evangelical Arminianism—readers may be tempted to think that Lucas goes out of his way to avoid polemics. The one contrast Lucas draws explicitly is between Presbyterianism and non-denominational congregations, which outnumber Presbyterian congregations five to one. But Lucas’s point in this contrast is to notice that non-denominational churches wind up functioning like denominations. It is a way to defend Presbyterians against the charge of being denominational. The book also ends with the largest section—a series of questions and answers about Presbyterian church life, from baptism of children and ordaining men only, to procedures surrounding sexual abuse and creedal subscription. One perhaps unintentionally revealing question is why Presbyterians engage in “so much conflict” (103). Trying to list all the “Split P’s,” Lucas writes, would require another book. The reason for so much controversy, he theorizes, is the failure of officers to submit to one another, along with the remnants of “corruption and sin.” These features of church life make Presbyterians all the more dependent on “the Holy Spirit’s guidance and empowerment” (104). Lucas leaves the impression that controversy is undesirable while not mentioning that Presbyterianism, from Calvin and Knox to Hodge and Chalmers, has clarified (and strengthened?) its witness through polemics. Previous generations were not squeamish in regarding the body of Christ this side of glory as the church militant.

Lucas’s first sentence likely gives away his intended audience. He observes that for more than twenty years he has conducted new member classes in the PCA churches he has served. In that light, the book may be useful for such instruction. But such readers are likely already comfortable with Presbyterianism in need of further perspective.

But at a time when young men especially are turning to vigorous expressions of Christianity where manliness seems to be encouraged—such as Eastern Orthodoxy, traditionalist Roman Catholicism, or alt-right Protestant Christian nationalism—Lucas’s book will likely look rather tame. Lucas need not have written a book with male Generation Z readers in mind, though the study committee on Christian Nationalism, recently appointed by the PCA’s General Assembly, is one indication that burly versions of Protestantism are having some effect in the NAPARC world. If so, Lucas might well have given more attention to the argumentative sides of Presbyterianism, opposition to the papacy, resistance to British monarchs—from England and Ireland to the United States—and the doctrinal disputes that they have encouraged. Such a presentation would not need simply be a posture for younger audiences. Instead, it would draw attention to the doctrinal, ecclesiological, and liturgical battles and debates that actually defined Presbyterianism. Whether or not Presbyterians took too much delight from controversy, the consequences of their sometimes heroic, wise, and godly pursuit of a truly Reformed church might not merely orient but inspire would-be Presbyterians.

Darryl G. Hart is distinguished professor of history at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, and serves as an elder at Hillsdale Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Hillsdale, Michigan and as a member of the Committee on Christian Education. Ordained Servant Online, April, 2026