Last week, in discussing the witness of those who bequeathed to us the 1934 Declaration of Barmen, I argued that the term “confessing church” has a historical and theological meaning that has been sealed in blood and thus merits a certain deference and respect. Historically speaking, the term “confessing church” has stood for people risking their lives for the conviction that the gospel of grace extends to everyone.
The 1934 Barmen Declaration in Germany was about not allowing divine grace to be circumscribed by the “Aryan paragraphs” which the so-called German Christians (and not the state) were pressing the church to accept; and the 1982 Belhar Confession in South Africa was about not allowing any division of grace according to the color of one’s skin.
Accordingly, we cannot allow this great term, “confessing church,” or the tradition it represents to be co-opted by a single party or interest group within the church seeking to vent its anger against another. However well-intentioned may be the newly born “confessing church movement” in the PC(USA), its claim to wear the mantle of Barmen will not stand up to close scrutiny.
But more than that, the narrowness of the three articles advanced by this new movement can scarcely qualify as an adequate confessional stance for our time. To be sure, the three articles put forward by the new confessors are true: Jesus is the Lord; Scripture is authoritative; and holiness in matters of sexuality does matter. They are true and they should be confessed as true. And in a time of extraordinary moral laxity, with serious social consequences, it is right that the church speak an appropriate word.
Yet are we content to say that this — the character of sexuality — is the one thing needful that the church ought to be confessing today and elevating to a status above everything else? Does the appropriate word that needs to be spoken all come down to this: Jesus, the Bible and sex? Or does not more need to be confessed? Could it be that the American church’s strange fixation on debating matters of sexuality to the exclusion of all else constitutes a skewing of the due proportion of our confession?
The counter-argument we hear is that the abuse of sexuality in society and church is but a symptom of a more deep-seated failure to confess the Lordship of Christ. No doubt it is. But how many more such symptoms of our disobedience to God are we American Christians prepared to examine in making our confession? One of the essays supporting the confessing church movement says it is time to stand up and oppose the false prophets of Baal. But to what extent does baalism extend beyond issues of personal holiness to embrace matters of systemic evil and injustice?
Bearing appropriate witness to Christian faith is a broad-ranging task that extends to embrace the whole of life. Think of it this way. Missiologists are telling us that world Christianity is rapidly becoming a religion of the poor. In a day when billions around the world must subsist on less than $2 a day, is a new confession on sexuality the one place where the church must say, “Here I stand; I can do no other”? Is that where we gain the greatest purchase on who we are as God’s people? Is that where the gospel is most at stake in our time?
It should be obvious even to the most casual reader of the New Testament that the protracted disputes in the PC(USA) over sexuality are but a pale shadow compared to the fiery light of Jesus’ own teaching concerning the reign of God. On a proportionate basis, the teaching of the Bible in general, and of Jesus of Nazareth in particular, has vastly more to say about justice, righteousness and salvation than about anything else. Indeed, the smattering of passages pertaining to homosexuality need to be held up against the massive amount of biblical material commanding us to embrace the stranger, to feed the hungry, to clothe the destitute, in short, to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with our God. To underscore this point, the evangelical Ronald J. Sider once compiled all the biblical passages on economic justice into a single book entitled, Cry Justice: The Bible on Hunger & Poverty. The book runs to well over 200 pages, a powerful indictment of any effort to constrict narrowly the scope of our Christian confession.
The proper concern over what the Bible says about sexuality must not be uncoupled from the Bible’s overriding concern for just relationships that enhance life and serve the broader purposes of God. When Christians from around the globe look at the American church, the most impressive thing they notice is not our opinions on sexuality (though they may notice that as well) but our collective captivity to wealth and our casual indifference to the plight of others.
If the Presbyterian Church is indeed being called to a new season of confession in our time — and may it be so! — then it cannot turn a blind eye to the larger and more pressing issues affecting the human race. This is all the more true for a confessing movement that would claim the mantle of Karl Barth. Barth maintained that every time one is confronted with a concrete human need, it places a claim upon us. It will not do, when faced with the plight of our neighbor, to say “That is no concern of mine.” It will not do to remain fixated on one aspect of the body’s activity when the whole person, body and soul, cries out in need.
With this in mind The Outlook in this issue respectfully reminds the church of the broader implications of its confession by turning to consider the declaration of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) at its 1997 meeting in Debrecen, Hungary. There the Reformed churches agreed that their confession must include a passion for economic justice and care for the Earth, which God made. Even in the face of so obvious a matter as widespread poverty and destitution, the WARC did not proceed hastily to declare a status confessionis or call impetuously for a confessing church movement. Instead, they recognized that the matter of bringing the church’s witness to bear on the whole of life is a complex, ongoing process. While the appropriateness of what the Debrecen declaration calls a processus confessionis remains disputed, what is clear is that the church’s witness must always include a proper concern for social justice.
We are most pleased, therefore, to include in this issue an interview with an expert on the theological position staked out at Debrecen, the former general secretary of the WARC, Milan Opocensky. We are grateful to Professor Opocensky for sharing with us his deeply held commitment to the gospel of reconciliation and his broad vision of what that gospel demands. In one sense, the demands of the gospel always challenge us, and to that extent the gospel is always at stake. Never is this more the case than when the church responds — or fails to respond — in concrete obedience to the tangible claims of the Other. To regain the due proportion of faith is to regain a passion for the full extent of God’s reign.
William Stacy Johnson is the Arthur M. Adams Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Seminary.
The Interview with Milan Opocensky
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