RSSWestminster’s Warrior Children
We have moved past times when the revolution will be televised. Now it’s happening on blogs. Dueling blogs have recently been created to voice either despair or support for the current administration at WTS (Philadelphia). Saveourseminary.com (get it, SOS) is the outlet for students and alumni who fear that the biblical studies faculty is about to be put on a tighter leash. According to these despondent bloggers, Westminster is about to abandon its commitment to both “cutting-edge†scholarship and “historic traditions.â€
Meanwhile, dudewheresmyseminary.wordpress.com was created to lampoon saveourseminary. It satirizes the fears of tyranny at Westminster by portraying “Karl†Trueman as a fire breathing tyrant, not too many steps removed from the real tyrants that Karl Marx inspired. The impression given is that worries of a palace coup are completely unwarranted. (The site is humourous, but it may not do justice to the seriousness of either the issues the biblical studies faculty have raised about the inerrancy of Scripture or how important holding a job is.)
What is arguably most puzzling about the current flap at WTS is that both sides are opposed to narrowness and smug denominationalism. To be sure, some alumni and students at WTS sound more open and outward looking (read: biblical) than their opponents whom they deem as narrow and inbred (read: creedal). For instance, at SOS Tremper Longman explains why he left WTS to teach at Westmont: “one of the reasons why I left in 1998 was my perception that the seminary was beginning to change from the deeply Reformed but outward facing institution that it was from the time that I first knew it in the 1970’s to a more inward defensive institution. I remember talking to one colleague, for instance, who told me that if I felt the Bible taught something that the Confession did not that I had to side with the Confession. That’s not the Reformed approach to the study of the Bible that I know and love.â€
But Carl Trueman, the one supposedly behind the defensive shift at Westminster, can sound equally outward looking. For instance, at Reformation 21, the on-line magazine of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals (hardly an inward Presbyterian group), he explained why he is sometimes critical of evangelicalism while also maintaining his regard for these Christians: “I am not in the game of bashing evangelicals and evangelicalism – humanly speaking, I owe everything, almost all my theology, and much of my Christian nurture to such people. It wasn’t the confessional Presbyterians who told me the gospel; it wasn’t the confessional Lutherans who took the time to teach me the basics of the faith; it was the evangelicals.†Trueman adds, “I refuse the binary opposition which makes me either an evangelical first, last and only; or a denominationalist who sits in his study taking supercilious potshots at those who do their best to share the gospel with those who need to hear it.â€
Apparently what we have here are rival ways of being open to evangelicals, of not being narrowly or parochially Reformed. In effect, WTS is now torn between Scott McKnight, Tim Keller and Richard Mouw’s sort of broad evangelicalism and Al Mohler, D. A. Carson and John Piper’s sort of Reformed evangelicalism.
What is missing from both sides is the understanding of being Reformed that informed the likes of Machen and Van Til, men who were in fact denominationalists first and whose potshots at evangelicalism were not supercilious. Their criticisms of a lowest common denominator evangelicalism and their defense of the grandness of the Reformed faith stemmed not from a love of being narrow or isolated (though holding to the Westminster Standards as opposed to following one OT professor’s interpretation of three books of the Bible is hardly narrow). It stemmed from the real differences that arise once one becomes a member of a church and a theological tradition. To be Reformed for the original WTS faculty meant not being something else.
Wouldn’t it be nice if vows to a wife did not restrict involvement with other women, and wouldn’t it be nice if responsibilities as an adult child didn’t require caring for aging and infirm parents, and wouldn’t it be nice if being a citizen of the U.S. also yielded the benefits that come to those living in New Zealand. And wouldn’t it be nice to live with Homer Simpson in the Land of Chocolate! The problem is, we are situated people, and this situatedness inherently cuts us off from other people. To be open to all people and points of view is the conceit of modernity. It is not human. The ties of church membership and theological traditions are no less situated.
Baus
February 4th, 2008 at 12:57 am
I’ve stated my points of disagreement with Mr. Hart on other topics far too frequently, so let me be the first to append a ‘harty’ AMEN to this.
Perhaps the “non-denominationalists” can agree that no matter where the lines of adiaphora are drawn –which determine the relative openness or closeness (or a part of the specific situatedness) of an ecclesiastical-theological tradition-membership– those lines themselves can never be matters adiaphora, not for us or them or anyone.
W.H. Chellis
February 4th, 2008 at 10:02 am
The example of Russell Kirk reminds me that conservatism is less about issue than it is about sentiment. Among folks in the conservative side-line churches there is often a great deal of conservatism on issues but little conservatism of sentiment. Reading the posts over at SaveorSeminary reminds me how deeply leftist sentiment runs in Reformed circles. Of course, no one is surprised by this in France, or England, but in America it seems shocking. this may be indicative of how confused our political categories have become.
I am thankful for Hart’s analysis. He shows himself a true son of Westminster and on of the few authentic voices of conservative sentiment in the Reformed world. Maybe Westminster would be in less trouble if more of its faculty followed Hart’s example and read some Wendell Berry, Richard Weaver, Russell Kirk, and most shockingly of all, some J. Gresham Machen.
stevez
February 4th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
“Apparently what we have here are rival ways of being open to evangelicals, of not being narrowly or parochially Reformed.”
Hear! Hear! It is exactly this sort of acumen that allows one to be able to write something like “Lost Soul” and pin the point about how the correct taxonomies in American religion are not “conservative” or “liberal” but “confessional” and “Evangelical.” The goggles work in a lot of places: It seems the rule of bad choices generally is found locally in the blog-row surrounding WTS.
That said, however, I wonder what Hart might say to one who exists within a rogue denomination (one that at once was a charter member of NAPARC yet roundly booted) and is told when considering leaving he would be all things un-catholic, etc. For those of us persuaded about “high-church Calvinism,†where does good ecclesiology end and errant parochialism begin? Is there such a thing as conflating denomination with church? In other words, just as there are merely “rival ways of being open to evangelicals,†there has to be a bad form of parochialism, doesn’t there?
stevez
February 4th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Bill,
You said: “…conservatism is less about issue than it is about sentiment. Among folks in the conservative side-line churches there is often a great deal of conservatism on issues but little conservatism of sentiment.â€
Good point. Great point, actually. But, if conservatism should characterize sentiment, why would my rendering of Jane Roe’s playground conversion (”Ms. McCorvey said she changed from being an abortion-rights supporter to opponent in 1995 when she saw children playing outside the abortion clinic where she worked – a sight that she said warmed her heart – and became a Christian.”) as a sort of precious moments social gospel really be, as you said, harsh? Has she has paid the conservative issue-toll and thereby gets a free pass on the icky liberal-sentiment?
D Hart
February 5th, 2008 at 10:27 am
SteveZ, one answer is don’t leave the CRC for a Bible church. Another is to call the CRC to reform its ways. But obviously I didn’t write this with your situation in mind. Being situated certainly has its complications. But those complications don’t mean that we can’t tell right from wrong, Reformed from evangelical, conservative from progressive.
ttaylor
February 5th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Would you say that the changes being made at WTS are positive? I realize that you may disagree with the WTS conservatives’ underlying views of being Reformed but I have something of a vested interest (I’ve been accepted to attend WTS in the fall) and I respect your opinion and sympathize with your views of the church and denominationalism.
stevez
February 5th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
“…one answer is don’t leave the CRC for a Bible church.” Check (with an over-animated inter-dental fricative for effect).
“Another is to call the CRC to reform its ways.” Check. But it is here in the backrooms with fellow malcontents, where I freely admit “it is a good thing I am not a parochial denominationalist because I am no fan of my own; I have come to say in recent years aloud what I have suspected for years: my time with her is limited” and wish I hadn’t said so much. (When it comes to my high ecclesiology I sometimes feel the way a favorite professor of mine once described his relationship his wife by simultaneously waving one hand in a “come hither” gesture and the other in a “get away” motion; familial metaphors are tops). Futhermore, my anti-activist views complicate just how far I take my calls to reform versus quietly bowing out in a “good and decent” Presbyterian posture. Something tells me you are about to say something about complication…yep.
“But obviously I didn’t write this with your situation in mind.” How dare you, sir.
“Being situated certainly has its complications. But those complications don’t mean that we can’t tell right from wrong, Reformed from evangelical, conservative from progressive.” Ah, the powers of prediction amongst proper Presbyterians. I said that without spitting.
D Hart
February 6th, 2008 at 6:13 am
ttaylor: The short answer is I don’t know. I don’t feel comfortably broadcasting the longer answer in this forum. Feel free to email me at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (whose website has my address).
stevez: This is the dilemma of CRC conservatives. Machen and the OPs had the Independent Board. It may not have been entirely kosher, but it did lead to trials and actions that were revealing. The CRC’s changes have been incremental, almost in good conservative fashion. At some point the duties of being the head of a household may demand that you ask to transfer as a member in good standing.
stevez
February 6th, 2008 at 9:40 am
D Hart,
True enough. But in the spirit of complication, there is a flip-side to leaving a place in which one is situated: going somewhere to become re-situated. Such is the nature of the word “transfer.” And for more complication at no extra charge, my more localist sensibilities keep telling me I don’t attend a denomination but a communion (which earn Congregationalist collars). On the ground, the disconnect between local communions and denominations makes it more, well, as the man said “complicated.”
Darryl Hart on a Westminster Blog-Row « The Confessional Outhouse
February 6th, 2008 at 9:53 am
[...] Darryl Hart on a Westminster Blog-Row Hart writes, “Apparently what we have here are rival ways of being open to evangelicals, of not be… [...]
D Hart
February 6th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
stevez, then what are you complaining about? But thanks for the shout-out over at confessional outhouse.
Three Ways of Relating to American Religion « Heidelblog
February 6th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
[...] Confession Tags: Confessionalism, evangelicalism, Westminster Seminary California Darryl Hart has weighed in at DRC regarding the controversy at WTS/P. He is responding to a couple of blogs and to a post by Carl [...]
stevez
February 7th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Complain? Who, me? All I want is my %^&! NTJ on time, sheesh. Tee-hee.
You’re welcome.
Confessional Presbyterian
February 7th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Dear Dr. Hart.
Given your own history at WTS, it might be helpful for us to know what you were able to do while you were there, to combat what you saw as the evils that were taking place around you and what you did to combat the ‘conceit of modernity’ that you saw at work? Also please tell us what you did to make the Seminary more connected with the church?
Kirk Besef
February 8th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Dear Confessional Presbyterian,
A thought here in response to your post which perhaps I wrongly understand as an implicit indictment of DGH.
Dr. Hart, WTS librarian, took another job where he could teach seminarians training to be Reformed pastors. This is how one tilts at the windmill conceits of modernity and connects scholarship with the church.
As an acadamician in seminaries and out, he has written books. lectured widely, and served his denomination faithfully as a capable elder. As to academic politics, I would guess that DGH has never been very good at that. After all, he studied Machen, not Machiavelli.
I think Machen and Van Til would be grateful for a WTS alum that still embodies the founding vision of Westminster.
Confessional Presbyterian
February 8th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
My question to Dr. Hart was a serious question and I hope I may still receive an answer to it.
For all its alleged faults, WTS PA also is training seminarians to be Reformed Pastors, so I’m not sure what your point is.
D Hart
February 9th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Confessional Presbyterian: I’d be more willing to answer your question if you actually revealed your identity. It seems only fair that if I stick my neck out even farther, you stick out at least a digit.
For the record, the changes I commented on at WTS I did not deduce were (in your words) “evil.” I do think being open to evangelicals in certain ways is not Reformed. But I’ve never countenanced that as wickedness.
And for what it’s worth, I’m well aware that WTS trains Reformed pastors. Some of my fondest memories stem from the students I knew and are now in the ministry. The problem WTS is now facing is that it also trains pastors like those signing the petition at http://www.saveourseminary.com who because they’ve been to WTS think they too are Reformed pastors. I’d have thought a confessional Presbyterian might understand that.
W.H. Chellis
February 9th, 2008 at 8:41 am
CP: Would it not be fair to say that Darryl G. Hart, through his long list of published books, articles, and blog posts, has done more than just about any living Presbyterian to stop the drift away from Confessionalism?
What did you have in mind? A coup?
W.H. Chellis
February 9th, 2008 at 8:46 am
I would add that Carl Trueman, the boogyman of the SOS crowd, is to be praised and prayed for in his efforts. May Westminster see better days.
Confessional Presbyterian
February 14th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
I understand from Dr. Hart that he was instrumental in recruiting Dr. Trueman which was certainly a good thing. At the same time, I also heard Dr. T once say that Dr. Hart tried to persuade him, NOT to take the job after it had been offered to him.
It’s a confusing world some times.
When Does Good Parochialism Go Bad? « The Confessional Outhouse
February 15th, 2008 at 10:46 am
[...] Under his post about WTS, I gave Darryl Hart high kudos for his point but then also asked him a question: already agreeing that narrow Reformed parochialism is not a four-letter phrase whatsoever, what might bad parochialism might look like? By the end of the exchange, he simply wanted to know just what I was complaining about. Either I wasn’t aware that I was complaining or we missed each other. Probably both, knowing human nature and what happens to it when cramming into a halo scan box. [...]
D Hart
February 16th, 2008 at 9:46 am
So you wanted a serious answer about parochialism. I think the answer may be that parochialism goes bad when it can’t tell the difference between sectarianism and catholicity. Say, a church decides that something that makes it uniquely faithful is also what requires all other communions to be faithful. All of this gets a little murky, say with a doctrine like the imputed active obedience of Christ. It may not be explicit in the Standards, but theological reasoning on the basis of the Standards and in interaction with current discussions may lead a communion to insist on this doctrine as important for the Reformed system. But redemptive historical preaching, as valuable as it may be, could become sectarian if a church made it a litmus test.
The most difficult area here in my estimation is history. All Reformed denominations have a unique history. Stories are powerful for maintaining a denominational identity. But are these stories truly catholic or do they breed isolation? I think the latter even though I’m also about trying to find a way to make them catholic. Church unions inevitably destroy historical consciousness. Does anyone in the PCA know the story of the RPCES?
stevez
February 16th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Thanks. That is what I am trying to sort out in my own mind, “the difference between sectarianism and catholicity.”
In my own experience, I have seemed to to have run across what I consider more “smiling” sectarianism than “brooding” catholicity, all turning on denominational loyalties…which just seems odd. I can’t tell for sure, but it also seems to also be a mere matter of bad blood between two Dutch Reformed denominations (CRC and URC). Granted, I came into things rather late; sometimes that seems to be a blessing, but other times not so much. The parochialism in the CRC simply seems to want to cast the URC as just being plain, old fahsioned schismatic. I may be quite dense and quite new on the block, but something tells me it’s not that simple.
What you say about stories is helpful. And I agree that they seem to serve sectarianism more than catholicity. A I said, my hunch more and more is that the stories in the CRC really seem to be ways to fortify a cultural project than a cultic one. (I think the more specific phenomenon of Christian Education here helps–if only they took their confessional tradition as seriously they do this one.) But when assimilation is in place, the efforts to maintain cultural cohesion seem quite left-of-center. This seems easy to see, being one who comes to the table quite deliberately and with absolutely nothing in rearing that lends itself to insider-ship (unbelief and not Dutch). Heaven knows they bend over backwards to make black sheep like me feel at home. But something about it seems awfully wrong, mis-guided. I suppose this is why I think the cultic/cultural antithesis seems so vital.
D Hart
February 16th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Confessional Presbyterian: I continue to wonder who you are and why you hide behind this moniker. I am also amazed at your ability to channel Carl Trueman. I wonder if you have similar powers with regard to John Owen and George Washington.
Your confusion in channeling Carl may stem from my reasons for cautioning him about going to WTS. Some of those had to do with personal and professional matters such as the advisability of leaving Britain’s fourth oldest university to go to a sideline seminary in the U.S. that was at the time experiencing fiscal difficulties. Turns out Aberdeen may have also had financial troubles of its own.
Another reason concerned Carl’s own ambivalence about confessional Presbyterians at WTS. He indicated to me that he was more comfortable with a broadly evangelical position.
But I find it peculiar that you have not responded to the substance of my post. That was the different ways of relating to evangelicalism at WTS, one side open to Keller and McKnight, the other open to Mohler and Piper. Neither of those ways of relating to evangelicalism follow the path cleared by Machen and Van Til.
I may have my own inconsistencies. But is this really a reason for disregarding my point about WTS? Who among us is worthy to cast the first stone of consistency?
D Hart
February 17th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Zrim, don’t discount ethnicity in the case of the CRC. I suspect it accounts for the huge amounts of spite heaped on those who appear disloyal to the denomination. How could families not stress loyalty above all costs. But here is where a dose of sphere sovereignty would help with discerning the difference between the Dutch church and the Dutch family. I’m pretty sure that ethnicity is not an ingredient for catholocity. At the same time, the covenant relies on family. So trying to keep a church from errors on different sides is hard work.