De Regno Christi

The last two years have been hard.  Regular readers will know that in October of 2008, I resigned as Pastor of the Rochester Reformed Presbyterian Church and took up the work of a full-time attorney. The work has been fun and, in many ways fulfilling.  The work has made the transition far less painful than it might have been.

My decision is resign from the pastorate was not an easy one.  By the time I took that last step, I was filled with hurt, anger, and spiritual exhaustion.  The story is not unique and either are the details.  A mix of strong personalities, conflicting theological presuppositions, failures to follow procedure, and my own failings in terms of combative pridefulness led to irreconcilable difference on the Session.  In the Fall of 2009, after the birth of my third daughter, Mary, my family’s membership was transfered to a local Christian Reformed Church congregation.  The Presbytery sent me my ministerial credentials, in good standing, at about the same time.

At the time, we were almost relieved to no longer be a part of the RPCNA.  Relief soon turned to alienation.  We had lost our home.  We were divorced from the Tribe that been so central to our own self-identification.  Even singing from the Psalter became a painful act to be avoided.  Reading theology based on a hermeneutic of hurt, I tried to run from Reformed orthodoxy.  Why?  It have no answer.  Throughout my theological conflicts as a Pastor, I always stood on the side of Reformed orthodoxy.   My defense was often prideful, sometimes arrogant, occasionally sinful, but always in defense of truth.

Nonetheless, I ran.  More accurately, I read.  I read the Roman Catholics.  I re-read Thomas and was introduced to the New Theology.  I read the work of former Calvinists who became Roman Catholics.  I read the work of Anglicans who became Roman Catholics.  I read Anglicans that stayed Anglicans and I lost my bearings in a sea of self-imposed theological relativism.  I wanted a true, infallible Church.  One that would reward her champions of orthodoxy rather than persecute them.  My family joined the theologically moderate Christian Reformed Church.  We attended the high Church Anglican churches.  We explored the beauty of Anglo-Catholicism and her rich liturgy.   But the whole in our hearts did not heal.  The gap only widened.

So why I am telling all this DRC readers?  Because I suspect you already knew.  You have, in many ways, observed the journey.  I am sure many wondered where it would go?  Would I end up an Anglican?  Would I cross the Tiber and become a Papist?

Today, I can tell you where the theological journey ends.  It ends where it began.  ”In my beginning is my end” wrote T.S. Eliot in East Coker.  True enough.  Today, I tell you that all my wanderings were the result of hurt, and spiritual exhaustion.  I am a Reformed, Presbyterian, Confessional, Psalm-singing Reformed Presbyterian.  In exile, yes, but not without hope.  In Calvin and  Turretin, Machen and Van Til I have found the substance the fills the whole that existed in my soul.

So here is the retraction.  I retract anything that I have written here at the DRC which questions the primacy of the Reformed faith as the purest form of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I further retract any latitudinarian sentiments that would obscure the purity of the gospel or suggest compromise with any other system of theology.  I retract any statements that might have obscured the great principles of faith alone, Christ alone, or the Bible alone.

I do not retract my belief that thoughtful and fruitful discussion can be had with Roman Catholic theologians and philosophers.  More the central mission of the DRC, I do not deny that Christian involvement in the secular sphere of politics can be greatly enhanced by dialogue between Geneva on Rome as we try to work out the implications of life together in the city of man.