- It appears to me that the Presbyterians (Reformed tradition from Scotland) only put things in their church order that they believe are taught within Scripture. Those things in the category of wisdom are left to the local body of elders to determine, e.g., things such as catechetical preaching and the number of services on a Sunday.
- The Continental Reformed (CR) include this category of wisdom within their official church order. This means that issues such as catechetical preaching and Sunday services are mandated throughout the churches for the sake of unity and Christian edification. While the Presbyterians leave wisdom to the local elders, the CR leaves it in the hands of the broader church courts.
- My hunch is - and I need to do some more reading on this - that the Presbys have placed a higher priority on being a part of a larger ecclesiastical body than the CR. If the Presbys see their church order as simply expressing the teaching of God's word, then there wouldn't be room for another denomination; there could be no division over wisdom issues.
- I mentioned in a previous post that our view of the relationship between the church and synagogue is going to influence (or be influenced by) our ecclesiology. I commented that covenantal-baptists (i.e., paedobaptists) are likely to be more influenced by synagogal worship in new covenant corporate worship than a credobaptist would be. I think the same trend would hold true for church courts. There was a real unity amongst the synagogues. Official courts like the Sanhedrin were in operation. There is a fair amount of similarity between them and presbyterian church courts. Congregationalists (most credobaptists) will, once again, emphasize the discontinuity between the synagogues and new covenant church: "Church government has fundamentally changed just like the nature of God's covenant administration."
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Reformed church government
One of the things I've been pondering lately is Reformed church government (i.e., "polity"). If you're interested in the topic (and I hope you are!), a great book to pick up is "Paradigms in Polity," edited by Hall & Hall. Here are some of my reflections and questions I'm pondering. They are not necessarily in a logical sequence:
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6 comments:
Interesting Zac! Could I ask what is catechetical preaching? Is it a part of expositional preaching?
Good question, bro.
- All preaching should be expositional, i.e., proclaiming the message of the Bible. But not all expositional preaching must explain a single text.
- Catechetical preaching (or just "catechism preaching") is a method of doctrinal preaching. Rather than a lone minister creating the doctrinal statement and/or deciding which doctrines to preach on, ministers used statements of faith that were drafted and sanctioned by the broader Church. In the early Church, they used the Apostle's Creed. Since the Reformation, the Reformed (early Lutherans, too) have used catechisms - most notably the Heidelberg Catechism.
- Historically, the Reformed churches have preached through books of the Bible at least once on Sunday. Then, they would use another service to preach through the catechism. They would utilize numerous texts during the sermon and summarize Scripture's teaching on that single point of doctrine. The catechism provided that summary and flow of thought.
As an example, my pastor is presently working through the Westminster Larger Catechism in our evening services. In the morning, he's working through 1 Thessalonians and just finished Leviticus.
Thanks that's helpful and makes a lot of sense. Wish I could be at your BBQ for the conference on Christianity and Liberalism, would wanna hear the discussions! Will you blog on it?
Dude, I wish you could join us, as well!
And I doubt that I'll have the time or insight to blog the whole conference. If there are any especially interesting nuggets, I may post them. I do recommend listening to one or two live if you're able. Last year was on "Christ and Culture," and it was awesome.
Hey my reformed friend! Hows it going? Interesting points. I get the feeling that you are coming out in favour of the Continental position.
A question for you though - does the legislating of wisdom really bring more church unity? If its over such things as whether (1) to do catechetical preaching at an evening service or another forum or means or (2) how many services you have on a Sunday surely legislating over such things only causes stumbling and unnecessary boundaries to put up between otherwise "reformed" people?
I am happy to be corrected but I think (unsurprisingly) that I would go for the Presbyterian model!
Hey Sean
Great hearing from ya. To be honest, I didn't mean to come out in favor of one over the other. I was simply trying to express the sentiment as they would do so. And what I mean by "unity" is "similar external practice".
I'd be happy working under either form of church government; I honestly could work with either. I am happy submitting to wisdom issues that are decided on by the synod/GA or the consistory/session.
One anecdote - in Geneva (a sort of "presbytery") there was a minimum number of times that the elders in different congregations would visit their members. This ensured catechesis, a personal relationship between the consistory ("session") and congregants, and the exercise of this important duty of the elders. In a Presbyterian set-up, the individual session legislates on these wisdom issues. In both set-ups, a dissenting elder/minister is left in the exact same position. Wisdom issues need to be legislated somewhere (Synod or the session) and someone needs to be submissive.
That said, from my reading in Hall, it seems that putting wisdom issues in the church order was the norm within the Reformed churches (I'm happy to be corrected on this.). And I think that even the presbyterians resort to something similar to the CR perspective in practice. I spoke to an OPC friend last night on this very topic. Their Church Order "strongly urges" their congregations to have two services. When one does not, they get a lot of pressure to do so from surrounding congregations.
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