I was talking with a Pastor (not Presbyterian obviously) who, in a general way told me the only reason traditional Presbyterians were bothered by FV was it was more in conflict with the Westminster than Scripture, (at worse FV is only a slightly bad exegesis at points.) To be honest people, for once your Uncle Etexas was at a loss for words. I did not get into it too much really, this Pastor is a friend and I do not think he was "looking for a fight." Just curious, how would you have dealt with this? Grace and Peace.

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~etexas~

I'm not a pastor nor am I elder-material, however from what I can tell, NPP, the parent of FV, questions the way certain statements of Paul the Apostle (i.e.Scripture) has been exegeted for centuries. The Confessions are a certain interpretation of Scripture based on scholarship. The NPP is new and trying to make us think it's the original. It's one interpretation of Scripture v. another, not Confessions v. Scripture, IMHO. I probably wouldn't have engaged him too much, either. Leave him to experts, that would be my thought.

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The man who is disposed to think of his sin as a great calamity, rather than as a heinous crime, is not likely either to reverence God or to respect His law. - John Kennedy, 1873
Meg
Blog
Member, Intown Presbyterian Church,PCA, Portland, OR

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Thank you. I do not claim to be an "expert" myself, but I am a well read layman, and I think there were a number of different directions in which I could have taken this, I think I ask, since it was brought up, what defense or answer is best given to the implication that we hide behind Westminster on the issue.

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~etexas~

2 Corinthians 4:2. A confession is a declaration of what a man believes. When one upholds a confession, the interpretation of Scripture is out in the open, being honestly maintained. To stand to a confession is not a hiding behind human authority, but a being willing to be accountable for one's beliefs by a plain declaration of the truth. Those who refuse to submit to a confession show their unwillingness to bring their teachings into the light that they may be judged. They have not renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, and hence are furthering a "cult" (secrecy), not true Christianity.

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Yours sincerely,


"Illum oportet crescere me autem minui."

Thank you Matthew, that is a very helpful way to think about it.

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~etexas~

Now you've got me wondering what denomination your pastor friend is associated with. I can't figure out what attraction the FV would hold for anyone BESIDES an extreme right of center Presbyterian.

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Tim Vaughan, 48 years old, member Redeemer OPC, Santa Maria CA.

Some kind of Episcopalian, possibly. There are independent "Reformed" or "Presbyterian" churches that might fit the bill too.

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Chris
OPC member
Now attending Grace Community Baptist Church
Mandeville, LA

"Faith alone saves, but it is a faith that works." - S. Lewis Johnson

Or, it could be a generally well-informed pastor who knows a bit about the controversies in other groups. When the shepherding controversy was hot among some charismatics back in the early 80s, I would joke with my colleagues in charismatic churches about it, based on my superficial awareness of the issue from Christianity Today etc.

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Dennis E. McFadden, Ex Mainline Baptist (in Remission)
Atherton Baptist Homes, CEO
First Baptist Church of Alhambra, Member, Transformation Ministries (CA)

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I'm not theologically trained and am not familiar with all the nuances of this.

Thankfully, one does not have to be to understand we are justified by Christ's righteousness alone. We are saved by God's grace through faith in Christ alone.

This is what Scripture teaches.

This is what the Westminster Standards summarize.

Any teacher in Christ's church who confuses this central truth or teaches something else about our justification in God's sight is in serious error, at least.

Ask your friend what it is he thinks the Scriptures teach that the Westminster Standards incorrectly summarize to get to the nub of this.

You might also gently point out to your friend, that in Reformed Theology, while there is "Unity in essentials, liberty in nonessentials, and charity in all things," that the unity of the church must be grounded in doctrinal agreement. Hence, a Confession is helpful toward that end.

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Scott
PCA
North Carolina

Soli Deo Gloria

For me, it would depend on how much time I had. If I did not have a lot of time, I might direct him to read something which addresses this claim which has apparently been made by pro-FV men themselves (i.e., that those who are opposed to the the FV are 'hyper confessionalists'). For example, the OPC's Report on Justification (Pg. 61, Section E; Prolegomena and Doctrine of Scripture) addresses the issue nicely, I think.

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Rob Somers
New Creation RPC
Kitchener, ON

For myself, I would point out that those taking an oath to uphold the Westminster Standards in fact believe that the WS contain the system of doctrine taught in Holy Scriptures. So, if a Presbyterian thinks that something is against the WS, then they think it is also against Scripture. The pastor you are talking about is trying to drive a wedge between Scripture and the Standards.

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Rev. Lane Keister
Teaching Elder, PCA, North Dakota (working out of bounds in a CRC and an RCA church)
http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com
http://brahmsgreenglove.blogspot.com
http://accenttranslation.blogspot.com
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I could be wrong, but I always viewed NPP and FV as similar in some respects but not really sharing the same origins.

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Daniel Franzen
Church Creek Presbyterian (PCA)
Charleston, SC

I'm currently reading Guy Prentiss Waters' book The Federal Vision and Covenant Theology: A Comparative Analysis and that's what he says at the beginning.

As far as the OP goes, it sounds like what your friend is trying to say is that Confessions are neither infallible nor exhaustive, and therefore do not have the capability of sorting out every doctrinal disagreement. We see this clearly even with certain issues here on our board, and the first chapter of the WCF reminds us that, while Confessions are good for summarizing what we believe, scripture is the ultimate authority in doctrinal controversies. Those two circumstances are not the same. For that matter, the same principle applies in teaching. If a person is teaching expositionally, he is going to cover things that aren't in the Confession, but this doesn't make his teaching necessarily wrong. Who would think that all there is to say about God is summed up in WSC #4? From what I've read of the controversy, this is the point that the FVers are making, and it may be what your friend was referring to.

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DAVIDIVS DOCTVS VTRIVSQVE LINGVAE
Husband of Emilia
Member: First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham (RPCNA) - Durham, NC
Currently in the process of transferring membership to an as-yet-undecided church in Chapel Hill
Student: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, German Literature and Classics

No you're not wrong, you're spot on. It's a pity that they have got so tangled up with each other because it makes for all sorts of confusion.

The NPP arose through Stendahl, Sanders, Dunn, and then Wright and has infiltrated all sorts of denominations. Indeed there is such a variety within the NPP that it's probably better to speak of new perspectives.

The FV is a different beast being mainly confined to Reformed denominations, having it's origins in some of the ideas of Norm Shepherd.

Whilst there are similarities there are some huge differences. In fact many NPPers would not recognize themselves as anything like the FV.

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Marty

"There is nothing so necessary to draw us to repentance as good thoughts of God." (Thomas Manton)

Give the man a cigar! It was an Anglican.

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~etexas~

I would add the biblical-theological quirkiness of James Jordan, as John Barach once told me in an email that Biblical Horizons was the FV. Leithart is also one of the patriarchs of the FV. Factor in a bit of Dutch theology in the form of Klaas Schilder (taken to an extreme), and you have the FV.

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Rev. Lane Keister
Teaching Elder, PCA, North Dakota (working out of bounds in a CRC and an RCA church)
http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com
http://brahmsgreenglove.blogspot.com
http://accenttranslation.blogspot.com
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Not the NPP? I read a book by Stendhal and he was espousing basically what Wright was saying, that we've historically misunderstood justification - isn't that what the FV is saying? Of course, it's more of a Presbyterian flavor, not Anglican a la Wright.

__________________
The man who is disposed to think of his sin as a great calamity, rather than as a heinous crime, is not likely either to reverence God or to respect His law. - John Kennedy, 1873
Meg
Blog
Member, Intown Presbyterian Church,PCA, Portland, OR

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There are points of contact between the two. However, the NPP is a New Testament scholarship phenomenon, and originated with Krister Stendahl, George Foote Moore, W.D. Davies, and then the bombshell of E.P. Sanders's book on Palestinian Judaism. In fact, it would be more accurate to state that the NPP is more like a new perspective on second-temple Judaism, claiming that Judaism was a religion of grace, not a religion of works. Hence, legalism wasn't really Paul's target. Rather, he was aiming against exclusivism. So, when it comes to phrases like "works of the law," the interpretation does not exclude all works from justification, but only those which exclude Gentiles, such as circumcision, and dietary laws.

The Federal Vision is a churchly movement, and is concentrated much more on the doctrine of the covenant, with implications for election, justification (this is where the most connection between the two lies), assurance, baptism, and the Lord's Supper. Of course, from the NPP, N.T. Wright has many overlapping concerns with the FV (more so than either Sanders or Dunn, neither of whom could be called evangelical). Hence, you have Mark Horne, Rich Lusk, and Steve Schlissel (all FV guys) appropriating great swaths of Wright's theology (though by no means all of it), whereas you have Doug Wilson repudiating the NPP for the most part.

On the issue of justification, none of the NPP guys have it right. Some of the FV guys are much closer to Reformed orthodoxy than some others. Doug Wilson, for instance, is much closer than Rich Lusk, Steve Wilkins, and Steve Schlissel. But their impetus for their doctrine of justification comes primarily from Norman Shepherd, not from N.T. Wright, although some influence from the latter is there. They wind up saying similar things about justification, ultimately, but because of different reasons: the NPP says different things about justification primarily because of its understanding of Second Temple Judaism, while the FV says different things about justification because of Norman Shepherd.

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Rev. Lane Keister
Teaching Elder, PCA, North Dakota (working out of bounds in a CRC and an RCA church)
http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com
http://brahmsgreenglove.blogspot.com
http://accenttranslation.blogspot.com
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I thought Schlissel had been dissociated from the FV and was just carrying on in individual craziness?

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Ruben
Moderator

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