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Risking the truth: interviews on handing truth and error in the church

An extract - Ligon Duncan on Federal Vision

Ligon Duncan is the Senior Minister of First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi, and Adjunct Professor at Reformed Theological Seminary. Here he explains his worries over a new movement within Reformed theology.

What is the Federal Vision?

Those friendly with or involved in the Federal Vision (FV) would say that it is a conversation not a movement. But it has enough identifiable characteristics to be able to describe it.

For some years now there has been a handful of voices on the margins of the American Reformed community advocating for theological revision. Concerned that the Reformed churches have been too inßuenced by revivalism and rationalism, and believing the traditional Reformed doctrine itself has not escaped the blind-spots of its contexts, these men have articulated a need for Reformed pastors and churches to undertake some serious theological reassessment.

These voices speak from the periphery, and have not, by and large, reflected the theological outlook of the recognised evangelical and Reformed seminaries, nor the conservative Reformed and Presbyterian denominations, but a small sub-culture has grown up around these voices, and their message has been spread via the internet, weblogs, newsletters, self-published books, conferences, tapes/CDs/MP3 downloads and various other media.

This diverse group of conversation partners has more recently embraced the designation ‘Federal Vision’ as a description of its collective aspirations. Among other things, they believe that classical Covenant Theology is in need of a biblical makeover and a fresh deployment in the Reformed churches and in the lives of Reformed Christians. Their proposals have not been widely embraced, but they have sparked controversy in the American Reformed community.

Children and the covenant

Douglas Wilson of Moscow, Idaho (perhaps the best-known advocate of the FV), highlights the following as concerns of the FV:

(1) to articulate and practise a more consistent view of the place of children in the covenant community and in relation to the promises of God [this often translates into the practice of paedo-communion in FV circles];

(2) to use language more biblically than has been the case, in their opinion, in traditional Reformed dogmatics, as well as its desire to subject traditional, confessional systematic theology to a rigorous scriptural re-think [this often translates into FV proponents’ dissatisfaction with confessional categories, formulations and boundaries];

(3) to co-ordinate the doctrine of union with Christ, with the doctrine of the church, so as to correct what it sees as an errant distinction between (or at least an unhelpful deployment of the idea of) the visible and invisible church in traditional Reformed ecclesiology [this sometimes results in FV proponents wanting to say that all members of the visible church are elect];

(4) to recover truths that the original Reformers had discovered but which have been lost due to the influence of the Puritans and the Great Awakening, not to mention revivalism [FV proponents tend to view Puritanism and the evangelical Calvinism of Whitfield and the Great Awakening as roots of numerous problems in the modern church];

(5) to recast the doctrine of faith and obedience in more scriptural language and categories [because the FV does not think that the New Testament entertains the kind of opposition between faith and obedience that is often articulated in evangelical explanations of the relation between law and gospel, between faith and works].

Thus, FV advocates often express an interest in and concern for (a) sacramental efficacy, (b) the centrality of the visible church, (c) the importance of a living and active faith in Christ, and (d) something they call ‘real covenantal union with Christ’.

Why the concern?

Why has the FV caused a concern in the Reformed church in the US? Well, in the PCA, for example:

(1) Because the FV has been promotive of church splits, and other ecclesiastical disruptions. PCA presbyteries have refused to transfer PCA ministers sympathetic to the FV into their presbyteries, because they have found their views to be out of accord with our Confession of Faith and outside the pale of acceptable doctrinal opinion. Other NAPARC denominations have determined the same. Hence, the FV has been productive of ecclesiastical trials and the subject of denominational pronouncements.

(2) Because proponents of the FV are zealous to spread their views. Consequently, NAPARC churches have appointed Study Committees and adopted position papers in order to check the spread of the FV errors.

(3) Because leading pastor-theologians in the Reformed and evangelical world have raised concerns over the unbiblical and anti-confessional views of the FV theology.

Sinclair Ferguson, Al Mohler, Doug Kelly, Brian Chapell, Don Carson, Rick Phillips, R.C. Sproul, Sean Lucas, Cal Beisner, Frank Barker and more have publicly indicated their disapproval of the theological programme of some or all of these various figures and groups. Yet, a not insignificant number of PCA teaching elders shows significant sympathy with these theological tendencies about which our most trusted churchmen and scholars have expressed distress.

Impact if FV embraced

The embrace of FV could be promotive of:

(a) an unhealthy and unbiblical sacramentalism;
(b) a confusion over the nature of justification and of saving faith;
(c) an externalism and formalism;
(d) a loss of assurance;
(e) an undermining of the doctrine of the new birth;
(f) a reconstructionist approach to Christian cultural engagement and more.

The biggest problem is the way such movements or tendencies can impair and undermine vital religion, by the positive doctrinal errors they promote and the doctrinal confusion that they engender. One does not have to assert that those who are sympathetic to FV are heretics doomed to perdition in order to indicate the problematic consequences of these views. It is always a dangerous thing to be incorrect, unclear or confused and confusing on gospel matters.

This article is an edited extract from Risking the Truth: Interviews on Handling Truth and Error in the Church by Martin Downes, published by Christian Focus. The book is reviewed in this issue, and the article is used with permission of the publishers.