What is sin? Sin is many things, but at its core sin is lack of conformity to and violation of God’s law (cf. WSC 14, WLC 24). Doing what God forbids is sinful and not obeying what God commands is sinful. Christians often disagree about what God has required in his word, which is why confessions of faith are valuable. A confession of faith is a statement of belief about what God’s word teaches. For the EPC, we believe that the Westminster Confession of Faith with the Larger and Shorter catechisms contain the system of doctrine found in the scriptures. We confess that these documents faithfully represent the truth of God’s word. Other churches may disagree with us, and some in the EPC may disagree with parts of these documents (more on that in a minute), but this is the chief role of a confessional system: affirming what the church believes God has revealed to us about himself and our duties towards him.
The EPC’s motto includes “In Non-Essentials: Liberty”. The idea in the motto, and very much the reality in the EPC’s culture, is that we foster liberty towards one another in areas of non-essential doctrines. People have the freedom to not only disagree with each other on these non-essentials, but are also able to have different non-essential practices. The most notable example of this is the ordination of women…
I was talking to some friends recently about churches and COVID and churches and armed security. The evil in Uvalde seemed to confirm to them the wisdom for increased security at the church (requiring concealed carry for security, locking church doors during worship, putting security cameras around the church). The questions I asked were, What is the threat level? Is there a reasonable likelihood of a violent threat to the church?
I have found that those who advocate this kind of church security overlap with those who are done with COVID. Done with masks, social distancing, temperature checks, living in fear. Do the masks work? Maybe. But people are deeply social and lose something with the masks. Instead of creating real security from the virus, it provides a false sense of security; virtue signalling, if you will. Masks might even be counter-productive for all sort of reasons…
Alan Jacobs has argued that parts of American culture and history have always been hostile to certain orthodox Christian beliefs. In this case, he points to the hostility shown to those who spoke out against racism, Jim Crow, and segregation. He is rejecting the premise of Aaron Renn’s Three Worlds Evangelicalism model: there never was truly a positive world and the negative world of today is not uniquely negative. Point taken. However, there are two key differences between the abolitionist and integrationist movements and our current situation. The first is that the church, particularly the Black church, was challenging an historically embedded establishment. Currently, the cultural establishment has shifted while the church has not…
I have argued that the Satanic Temple’s claims that abortion restrictions are expressions of religious values to be correct, though I think the restrictions should still stand. Last year the Satanic Temple challenged Texas’ abortion restrictions on religious liberty grounds. The argument goes that Congress and the States may not restrict religious liberty, and abortion is a Satanic, religious practice: ergo, restricting abortion is a restriction on religious liberty. With the news that Roe v. Wade may be overturned, this argument has suddenly gained mainstream appeal.
I was happy to see Josh Blackman over at Reason explain why this approach to rolling back abortion restrictions is unlikely to succeed.
Since I wrote on James’ article on First Things there’s been some additional commentary, which I think deserves a response.
Tim Keller has never applied his “third way” towards partisan politics as such, but to the essence of church fellowship. This article on the whole brouhaha by Brian Mattson is good, but misses what Keller is doing:
Keller absolutely affirms that abortion is a great evil—he is a conservative Presbyterian pastor, after all. But then he follows up with the idea that the best way to reduce abortion isn’t exactly clear, and maybe the left has ideas as good as those on the right. This is where the missing priorities problem is at its greatest. If it is a great evil, if it is the unjust taking of human life, at the very least it should be illegal. At the least.
Except, as I pointed out in my last post, Keller very strongly and publicly opposes legal abortion. He even publicly committed to civil disobedience if compelled to support it! Keller is saying that those who adopt different political strategies for addressing abortion (or pick your political topic) than him should not be barred or cast out of church. That’s what his recent tweet thread was about, that’s what his articles that James and Mattson cite are about.
That’s what makes James’ followup so frustrating: “I am largely concerned about the way [Keller’s] framework is broadly appropriated by his disciples, many of whom populate leadership positions in churches and other Christian ministries.” He should have said that in his first essay. James is at pains to say he appreciates Keller, even his approach, but thinks a) inadequate Keller’s winsomeness applied to politics and b) inappropriate the way Keller’s framework has been misused by his disciples. Then say that. Writing an article about how he has moved on from Keller, rather than one about how Keller has been misapplied and there needs to be a recalibration, strikes me as unfortunately cynical.
