It is because of this dynamic, trinitarian Constitution of the church that we must nourish a dynamic, trinitarian understanding of the church’s confession. Just such a dynamic understanding of the church’s life has emerged in the PC(USA) over many decades of hard-won experience. This historic consensus runs along a trajectory that begins in the Adopting Act of 1729, becomes solidified in the polity decisions of the 1920s and culminates in the theological rebalancing achieved in the Confession of 1967, the collection of a Book of Confessions and the reuniting of the PCUS and the UPCUSA in 1983. Or so I have argued in these pages (see “Revisiting the Confessional Nature of the Church“).
At the heart of this historic consensus is the establishment of doctrinal standards rooted in historic Reformed theology, together with the Spirit-led interpretation of those standards in light of the ongoing exposition of the Scriptures. It is a denial of the dynamic nature of the gospel to constrict the church’s witness to a subscriptionism that locks us into a set of abstract doctrinal formulae. It is a similar denial, on the other hand, to turn the gospel into something amorphous and incapable of communication or practical embodiment. The historic consensus points us in a different direction: it points us to the necessity of rich doctrinal standards, which are the subject of ongoing, constructive interpretation made real within the fellowship of a presbytery.
Because of the emphasis I place on the primacy of presbytery decisions in ordination, some have interpreted my account of this historic consensus as a thinly veiled argument in favor of Amendment A. While the Amendment A debate is important, and while the lessons of the historic consensus do raise serious questions concerning the categorical prohibition of G-6.0106b, my overriding concern at the present time lies elsewhere. In some ways, the debate over the standards of G-6.0106b has now been eclipsed by other more pressing concerns. So intense have become the controversies and so profound the misunderstandings separating various factions in the perennial debate over sexuality, that our very sense of what it means to be a Presbyterian Church has now become contested ground. In other words, the debate over ethical standards for ordination has now generated a whole spate of other debates — high-stakes debates that go to the very heart of who we are as a church.
Perhaps Presbyterians who are quite happy with life in their own congregation are unaware of how serious matters have become in some corners of the wider church. With some churches openly disobeying the Constitution, with others saying we need a new or different sort of Constitution, and with some churches either seeking to pull out of the denomination altogether or actively talking about whether to do so, the “debate” has now shifted well beyond Amendment A. In fact, one reason the proverbial “swing vote” in the church seems to be voting consistently against Amendment A is because of its perception that the sexuality debate itself has now threatened the very viability of the denomination, the very cohesiveness of its body politic. People are beginning to worry whether the church can succeed in hanging together. When the dust settles, G-6.0106b or perhaps Amendment A, will still be left standing by themselves, but in the meantime the rest of the church’s constitutional fittings may well have come crashing to the ground.
There can be no progress on contentious issues when the very grounds for deciding those issues have themselves become either unclear or in dispute. With this in mind, my attempt to return to the “historic consensus” is aimed at focusing attention on something more elemental than Amendment A, something over which I hope all Presbyterians can agree irrespective of their views on Amendment A. What I am pointing to is an inherited Presbyterian consensus that we all share, a consensus learned through the wisdom of the years and woven into the complex fabric of our Constitution. To be sure, there are other Presbyterian churches that have a different constitutional make-up (the Presbyterian Church in America for instance), but I am speaking of the historic consensus in our community that has been carefully framed over time.
My argument is intended to be neither conservative nor liberal per se; rather it is directed against both strict subscriptionism and unfettered constructivism; against a subscriptionism of either the right or the left, and also against a heedlessness of whatever political sort that would thumb its nose at the church’s Constitution or undermine it through schism. Of course, statements of dissent or the advocacy of controversial positions are always permissible, but acts that undermine the constitutional bonds that hold us together in Jesus Christ are self-contradictory and self-defeating.
On the one hand, what I am saying shares familiar ground with what some prominent conservatives have been arguing (though, again, I am not sure that the terms conservative and liberal are helpful any longer). For example, I agree with Winfield Casey Jones when he argues that the church needs to pay more attention to its Book of Confessions. A dynamic, trinitarian understanding of the church’s confessions will surely invite church leaders to confess the triune character of God, the divine and human reality of Jesus Christ and the centrality of Jesus Christ in the salvation of the world. On these issues the diversity of witnesses in the Book of Confessions is in one accord. It is perfectly appropriate, therefore, to ask of ordained church leaders that they be able explicate these convictions. That so many church leaders seem to get that “deer-in-the-headlights” look on their face when asked to do so has been a cause of major consternation. After all, the historic consensus is clear: there are theological standards in the PC(USA), and church leaders are called upon to explicate these standards.
On the other hand, the historic consensus is also clear that these standards are subject to constructive interpretation . A dynamic, trinitarian version of the church’s confession will come to expression in authentic, spiritual engagement with the gospel. We must be open to what God is doing in the world. What the church said at the Council of Jerusalem is something the church is also empowered to say today: “It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us . . . .” (Acts 15:28).
The Christian faith is a living faith. No set of standards from the past can say all that needs to be said in a given situation; and so, generating ad hoc lists of essential tenets to which church leaders must subscribe may advance an ideology or effectuate a power-play, but it does not, in itself, advance the gospel. The explication of the church’s standards, to put it plainly, is an ongoing, constructive task in relationship to the Word and Spirit.
In keeping with the polity consensus of the 1920s, it is appropriate and necessary that church leaders be examined concerning their theology, but it would be inappropriate for a governing body to impose upon a church leader a particular doctrinal formulation in the abstract.
Take for instance, the formula that some have been advocating since the most recent GA, the belief that Jesus Christ is the “singular saving Lord.” I personally agree with what is behind that statement and I confess it to be true. I would be happy to discuss the statement in an examination. But it would be illegitimate to elevate the formula itself to a matter calling for subscription. It is a formula not contained in any of our confessions in precisely those words, and it does not say everything that needs to be said on this topic: for surely the so-called “singularity” of Jesus’ Lordship is misleading if not accompanied by a dynamic triune explication of God’s Lordship in Christ by the Spirit’s power. Again, as Winfield Casey Jones argues, “To create a theological statement out of thin air” is not our task but to be guided by Scripture and our present Book of Confessions. On this model, as I have argued before, the Office of Theology and Worship document, “Hope in Our Lord Jesus Christ” is a helpful step in the right direction.
One practical obstacle to our moving forward as a confessing church is that some people are asking (rightly) for an explication of the church’s theology but demanding (wrongly) that explication be made in the form of subscription to this or that formula. In response, others are refusing (rightly) to be pressed into any such subscriptionism while refraining (wrongly) from being willing to make clear the ground for the hope that lies within them (1 Peter 3:15). The good news is this: the church’s future rests secure in the dynamic story of God’s engagement to be our God. However, the church’s future is also challenged, at least from a human point of view, by whether and how we respond to that divine engagement. Returning to our church’s historic consensus provides the only clear way forward for a church that would be Presbyterian in the contemporary world.
William Stacy Johnson is the Arthur M. Adams Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Seminary.
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