“But if you’re going to draw on numerous traditions then you’re not going to have a tradition.”

This, I believe, is false. Is not Christianity itself a tradtition? I merely suggested that we mine all the traditions within the Christian tradition.

I agree with you that Kline’s CoW construction has wide historical precedent. In my view, the whole thing reeks of medieval notions of merit and needs to be scrapped.

BTW, you guys really have to get over your hang up with the Covenant of Works and the Klineans. It’s not just the 20th century, but a lot of people before M. Kline.

Why should I be more “careful” in citing the non-Reformed Pieper than the Reformed Moltmann? Is there the presumption that Reformed authors are “safer” *across the board *than non-Reformed authors? Should I be more “careful” with Luther’s support of infant baptism or the Reformed Barth’s opposition to it?

If the Covennat of Works as generally understod in the 20th century is not Biblical, should be more “careful” of Dan Fuller’s opposition to it or the Reformed Kline’s support for it?

I’m am willing to be corrected here, but it seems to me you vest the Reformed tradition *as such* with a mystical superiority, trumping all else in the interpretation of the Bible. Can we not respect that tradition while being open to valuable insights from other traditions?

I know of many Lutherans and not a few Calvinians who see the WCF as a hermeneutical grid through which they read the Bible. Is this how the Holy Spirit intended us to read the Bible? May we not draw on numerous traditions, working toward the most accurate grasp of the text and of its theology irrespective of traditinary labels?

Another might be that Doug Wilson thinks he needs to translate for you.

BTW, on one is objecting to FV reading non-Reformed authors. The objection is that FV proponents don’t see the differences between Reformed and non-Reformed authors, and so are not more careful about they way they draw upon or cite other traditions. Can you say N. T. Wright? Sure you can.

BOQ: Amillennialism is the default position in the Reformed and Presbyterian Churches today. As we have seen above, it was not always so. When Calvin did theology, his fundamental concern was with social order and the restoration of social order: the order between the triune God and human society, between people and people, etc. (See Benjamin Charles Milner, Jr., Calvin’s Doctrine of the Church. Studies in the History of Christian Thought 5 [Leiden: Brill, 1970].) Nor is this concern with order unique to Calvin’s overall theological approach. It was a characteristic of all Renaissance-period thinkers, and indeed had been how theology was done from the time of Irenaeus forward, including Eusebius, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and all the Reformers. All were concerned with Jesus Christ’s restoration of order to all of life. The notion that Jesus came only to cherry-pick a few individuals out of the world and put them in a basket, leaving the rest of the world to flames, would have appalled them.

Doing theology in a context of social thought and with a concern for social order did not stop with the Reformation. The men at the Westminster Assembly were concerned with the same matters. After all, they met during the English Civil War, a time when they were trying to reorder all of society. Samuel Rutherford’s political treatise Lex, Rex; or The Law and the Ruler begins in its opening paragraph by referring to a whole list of Roman Catholic writers who were also wrestling with the same issues. I mention this because one objection to “Federal Vision” writers is that they dare to read Catholic, Lutheran, and Orthodox theologians and thinkers! Anyway, one need only read the literature of the Presbyterians and Puritans in England and New England to realize that they did theology in a context of postmillennial expectations and of concern with society. EOQ

Now, much can be said about the difficulties encountered with transferring a medieval notion of social order into the Americas, and how the Covenanters tried to preserve the Reformation in this area while others made adjustments. But regardless of that, there is a whole-life societal-political context in which theology is done, and that is the Reformed context, and it is the FV context. The Reformed faith is not the ordo salutis.

To be sure, examining the Reformed tradition we FVers also see errors that we wish to leave behind: Keeping children from the table; lack of enthusiastic dancelike hymnody and psalmody (i.e., returning to the Reformers in this area); lack of music instruments (returning to David); lack of festivals. The larger area we see is that intellectualistic tendency to see man as homo sapiens rather than homo adorans, and seeing the production of an “educated” clergy as more important than producing a clergy capable of playing cymbals and trumpets and leading in the kind of worship God likes. Which is why, we believe, God has moved most of His people into churches that, however poorly in execution, do worship Him with joy and vigor. But in fact, I myself wrote an entire book on this subject, interacting with Girardeau and others of the minimalist tradition. We have not ignored tradition. We have interacted with it constantly and at every point.

So, I would appreciate it if you’d get off this “FV does not respect Reformed tradition” dime, because it’s beginning to stop being a misunderstanding and to start being an insult.

This relates to Mr. Sivard’s point about the Standards as subordinate standards. They may differ from the constitution, though Staussians would say that the Constitution is subordinate to the Declaration. So subordinateness goes around. Even if the Standards are as subordinate as you make them, are they not superior to your or my reading of Scripture? Again, I see the Bible floating away on biblicist wings as if it exists out there uninterpreted, only to be lassooed by the most brilliant interpreter. Who am I after all, to suggest my reading of the Bible is better than the collective wisdom of my communion? And I’d need to be off my meds to think that my interpretation was superior to the Reformed church fathers.

But where I privilege a church’s reading of the Bible, you privilege a lone individual’s reading, possibly yours, possibly Frame’s, possibly Sheperd’s. Presbyterianism is not a democracy, but if it were the reading I privilege would get more votes (believing for the moment in the democracy of the dead) than yours. But as a churchman, I’m always prone to take a church’s reading (Reformed or no) more seriously than an individual minister’s.

This may not mean that we receive UNBIBLICAL teaching with reverence and submission, but it does suggest that we give an ordinance of God the benefit of the doubt. And if we do disagree, we do so knowledgeably, humbly, and willing to be corrected.

Again, I ask where’s the high ecclesiology?

Besides, a judge in the U.S. might have a good reason to approach a case by looking to French law, e.g., if that law is an interpretation of an international treaty which both the United States and France have adopted or a private contract governed by French law.

I will try to address the subordinate normativity of the standards for church courts a little more thoroughly in a post on my blog, if anyone is interested.