Andrew of Theo Geek is intrigued by Westminster Theological Seminary’s recent suspension of Peter Enns, allegedly because his book Inspiration and Incarnation violates the Westminster Confession. It took a little digging to confirm the status of this confession at the seminary, before I found a Faculty Pledge which Enns is presumably suspected of breaking, which includes:
I do solemnly declare, in the presence of God, and of the Trustees and Faculty of this Seminary, that … I do solemnly and ex animo adopt, receive, and subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms in the form in which they were adopted by this Seminary in the year of our Lord 1936, as the confession of my faith …
See also this description of the “Westminster Standards”.
Andrew writes:
It intrigues me because I just can’t fathom the sanity of adhering to a creedal statement written in 1642. In 1642 they barely understood Koine Greek, biblical scholarship was only in its infancy, they had next to no understanding of the customs, practices and thinking of ancient world, and they had very few of the writings of the early church Fathers that we now have. For almost every conceivable reason there is evidence to think that people trying to interpret the bible in 1642 could have made serious errors. Indeed, the majority of scholars today would say they did.
As Jim West has rather surprisingly argued, the seminary has the right to hold its own standards, and to cease to employ those who adhere to them. But is the seminary right to insist on such standards? I note also Westminster student Arthur Boulet‘s comment on Jim’s post, pointing out that
The reality of the situation is that there is no official finding that Enns is outside of the confessional boundaries of Westminster Seminary.
But this post is not so much about Enns’ personal situation as about the principle of Christians and Christian organisations using as doctrinal standards in the 21st century confessions of faith and statements of doctrine dating from the 16th or 17th century. While this period was indeed marked by a great flowering of biblical and theological scholarship, especially relative to the intellectual stagnation of the late Middle Ages, Andrew has a strong case that these 16th and 17th century divines could not have matched the biblical understanding of modern scholars.
Of course one might answer that Andrew’s parallel with the development of science is an inappropriate one because theology and biblical studies are inevitably anchored in the past events of the biblical period. But the 16th century is not that much closer to the ancient world than we are today, and it is easy to show that any advantages the people of that time might have had from being a little closer to ancient events is outweighed by the greater understanding of the past we have now from discoveries of ancient texts and indeed whole ancient civilisations which were unknown in the 17th century.
I am with Andrew when he writes:
It frustrates me that colleges actually exist who adhere to such doctrinal statements and see it as their duty to churn out students who believe such things. Such indoctrination results in a massive amount of bias, propaganda and apologetics contaminating scholarship. Modern interpretations and theories end up judged on their conformance with seventeenth century doctrinal statements! I have learned to steer clear of such biased ‘scholarship’. … In practice this seems to mean avoiding completely reading ‘scholarship’ produced by anyone in the Reformed or Presbyterian traditions, and careful filtering of Anglican, Catholic and Lutheran writings.
In my experience this is an issue not just with colleges but with entire denominations, including denominations like newfrontiers which deny being denominations. They hold as their standards of belief, formally or informally, the teachings of men (almost never women), making these teachings in practice if not in theory the arbiters of Scripture. It was for similarly exalting their sectarian teaching over the Word of God that Jesus accused the Pharisees with the words:
You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.
Mark 7:8 (TNIV)
Now before anyone wonders, I have not gone nearly as far as Andrew in “abandon[ing] the doctrinal teachings of my childhood church”. Indeed I could personally accept large parts of the Westminster Confession, although not others parts such as the one about predestination. That, however, is not the point. The point is the way that many Christians are living in the early modern period and not noticing that the world has moved on, and so has God, and they should not be stuck in a past age, however good.
I suppose it is for similar reasons that so many Christians continue to value the King James Bible, and continue to argue as even Suzanne McCarthy does that it is
the premiere Bible for academic and literary reference.
I suppose one might equally ask why Christians adhere to the 4th and 5th century statements of doctrine known as the Creeds. But that is another question for another day …
“the world has moved on, and so has God”
What a quote! I’ve been alluding to this point through bad jokes (The New New Testament) and through the Cyber-Psalms.
Paul’s letter to the Philippians is full of this idea: “Forget what lies behind and press on.” Or at least we can say that the touchstone moved from Sinai to Calvary and our focus became a new and living way that looks forward with hope to a coming King.
We’re all concerned about our faith becoming unrooted or unmoored but an excessive attachment to old creeds can become a “body of death” that we need to be freed from.
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Peter, I find that unfortunate. But the WCF is almost considered “sacred” or even the very words of God.
The divines of the 16th and 17th must be commended for their efforts, but the problem comes with how future generations understand the document.
But if Dr. Enns violated what he once agreed to then Westminster cannot be held accountable, as wrong as they might be about the WCF.
Wow. I don’t often find ideas rejected just because they’re old, and especially on the subject of religion. I usually hear ideas rejected because they’re wrong. And here of all places, I would not have thought to hear that prejudice.
You won’t catch me committing to uphold the WCF, but you won’t catch me committing to uphold anything written after Nicea, either. It has nothing to do with age or science, but with the comprehensiveness of the declarations. Once a creed gets past 500 words, it’s going to force me to separate from a true child of Christ somewhere, and I am loathe to do that.
You use the advance of science as an analogy, and I think it’s a better one than you admit. Western science has to be the highest reach of human philosophy in terms of measurable success. And yet, it falls short in so many humanistic areas. They developed the wonderful ideas of observation and and peer review, then ended up in a secular and materialistic box canyon. Science has thrown off entire dimensions of humanity. Their end is worse than their beginning.
Observation and peer review of sources is becoming a beautiful part of modern Christianity. That’s good. But I cannot really expect that the common sense observations of the 1600’s will suddenly be proven wrong. It’s not by their science we know them, but by their fruit. And so far, I don’t see anything in our generation to overthrow the fruit in the lives of the men who wrote the WCF. Maybe that’s just selective history. It happens. But those men knew the Lord, and they knew their bibles, and they live to an astoundingly high standard. Their doctrine was sound, and still is.
I’m not a fan of the sentiment that God has moved on. Now that I have to click submit, I’m hesitant to do so for fear I’ve misunderstood something, but it was posted on 4/2, not 4/1 and it seems pretty clear. Ah well.
Codepoke, this was certainly meant seriously, not as a late April fool.
But you misunderstand me if you think I am rejecting ideas just because they are old. Far from it. The Reformers had some excellent ideas. I accept very many of the ideas in the Westminster Confession. What I do reject is the concept of rejecting ideas just because they are new, just because they do not agree with a particular predefined set of old ideas.
As for the fruit of 17th century ideas, you are on dangerous ground appealing to that. There may have been great fruit from them in past centuries. But where is their fruit today? The retreat of so many Christians into a shell of ideas based on irrelevant controversies and expressed in old-fashioned language has surely been a major factor in the increasing secularisation of western society and the loss of whole generations from the Christian church.
Instead of relying on 17th century ideas, I agree with 17th century pastor John Robinson, pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers, who said:
I enjoy the fact that as a Waldensian pastor, I adhere to a confession of faith written in the 1500s. It’s a confession of faith people paid for with blood. They confessed it, lived it out, and in some places, were slaughtered by Catholics for so doing. I would be disgusted if the confession of faith were put in deep freeze. The rootlessness of most contemporary Christians is appalling.
Furthermore. I believe every word of the confession. Sure, I interpret it in the light of Scripture, not the other way around. That’s what the confession of faith says I should do.
This is a great comment thread. One of the reasons I love blogging.
John, if I could respectfully say something about that. Sometimes these confessions are written in opposition to something that no longer exists. So, in essence reciting a creed can be like pushing against a wall that is no longer there. You face no danger of being slaughtered by Catholics. But there are many very pressing dangers to Christians in 2008. Perhaps a 500 year old creed could be applied to believers in Turkey for example. But I see a great value in reformulating our confessions in the light of the Word and as we confront very pressing and grave dangers in the modern world.
As a graduate of Westminster, I support Pete Enns, but you are wrong about confessions.
Is it wrong to hold to the Apostle’s Creed, the Nicene Creed or even… the Bible? Afterall, they are a lot older than the Westminster Confession. Are they necessarily not useful for ecclesiastical purposes? Surely theology is contextual, but these creeds save us from being confined to our own time and place. They are useful, particularly because our modern situation is so different, not in spite of it. The beauty of the Westminster Confession is that even though I may think quite differently than it’s authors on a number of subjects, I still hold to the same basic “system of doctrine” (not every word) as a modern Presbyterian. While historical research can greatly enrich our understanding of Scripture, God did not make the main doctrines of the faith dependent upon this research.
Creeds are sacred. Not because they are authoritative like Scripture or inerrant, but because they really do summarize God’s Word.
The problem at WTS is with how some are applying the confession, not with the confession itself.
Codepoke,
The Nicene Creed was quite divisive. That was it’s purpose, to squelch the large portion of the church that was Arian.
> But where is their fruit today?
Well said, Peter. Thanks.
> The Nicene Creed was quite divisive
I didn’t express a problem with dividing, except with true children of God. Dividing with those who would belittle the Son of Glory sits very comfortably with me. Dividing with those who might disagree with a few of the WFC’s 12,000+ words bothers me.
Thanks for all the comments.
Jonathan, as I hinted at the end of the post, I have similar issues with the ancient creeds. Personally I accept them. But I have my doubts about their usefulness for the church today, for the same reason as I have doubt about the 16th and 17th century confessions. Lingalinga makes the basic point:
Christians today should be fighting today’s battles against unbelief and wrong belief, which are all too real, not fighting among themselves about ancient matters.
I don’t say that the old confessions should be thrown out completely. They should be treated as treasures of the theology of past ages, and as starting points, among others, for doing good theology today. My objection is only to using them as tests of orthodoxy.
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