An Alliance of Non-Confessing Evangelicals?

I was writing a blog entry on the question of when or under what circumstances might a Christian or Congregation withdraw from a covenant relationship with other Christians. I turned to the Reformed Confessions to support my argument. Then it occurred to me that liberals won’t be convinced by the authority of a Reformed Confession. Liberals scorn such confessions as archaic and even evil. At best they give lip service to the idea that confessions record what the Spirit once said to the Church before the Spirit was enlightened by His betters. Sure they cite them but only very selectively. They will read my appeal to the confessions as little more than the proof texting method they use for arguments of convenience and not a sincere statement principle.

I was further sobered after an exchange with a prominent member of the Presbyterian renewal movement. When I appealed to the reformed confessions, he raised, in a dismissive tone that well worn canard about how the Scots confession is bigoted toward modern Catholicism. His point was that the whole confession must be discarded if one section is “flawed.” He went on to throw out Westminster on the basis of its doctrine of double decrees – God elects both the saved and the damned. He asked me if I was a “Subscriptionist” and I said, “Yes.” That ended our conversation ("rat quick") and opened my eyes.

There is an organization called the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. I have followed them for years and attended a few of their events. One might ask, “Are there evangelicals who are not confessing Christians?” The answer is that most evangelicals do not submit to a formal statement of the faith once delivered among the saints. At best, they have a list of very generally stated beliefs. These tenets are basically a re-write of the five Fundamentals. They confess the deity of Jesus, the virgin birth, the blood atonement, the Second Coming of Christ, and the inerrancy of the Bible. Most say nothing about the doctrine of God apart from an affirmation of the Trinitarian formula for the Godhead. They rarely address the sovereignty of God. This is how we get such screwy doctrines, within evangelicalism as “open deism” and "new perspectives on Paul."  [Open deism claims that God is evolving.]

Many evangelicals, in the PC(USA) are inconsistent Barthians – with a few truism from Calvinism, Lutheranism, and romantic revivalism thrown in to confuse their witness and sometimes make them sound more Reformed than they really are.

 The Reformed movement has always had a conflict over the need and place of confessions, but, we have until 1967 generally agreed that one standard is necessary in order to be good stewards of the mysteries – the truth given us to defend and preserve. Some would have us throw all that out and just be warmly missional.