Volume 4: Issue 4 | July 2021
Explanation of the Fifth Commandment:
Honor The Dishonorable Father
"Honor your father and your mother,
that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you."
–Exodus 20:12
Hearing the Fifth Commandment about honoring father and mother has never been easy for me. How do you honor a father you never met? My experience of never meeting my father is sadly not unique. And why should a girl honor a mother who harms and belittles her?
Yes, parents have neglected, abused, hated, and even murdered their own children. And children have neglected, abused, hated, and even murdered their own parents. The Bible that tells us God’s commandment to honor father and mother also tells us about parents hating their children and children hating their parents. That sad and heinous reality is why we need the Fifth Commandment. We can’t write it off as some old and useless law. In fact, we need to understand why God gave us this commandment to understand correctly our own family experience.
An assumption most people have is that we are born functioning normally – normal thinking, normal decision making, normal emotions. Certainly, people see problems in our world, but we rarely blame ourselves. Oh, it’s those greedy politicians, those greedy capitalists. It’s ignorance and poverty. It’s bad laws.
But when God looks at the violence, wrongs, and evil done in our world, he sees a different source of the trouble, the hearts of men and women set on evil, hearts that want to live however they please (see Genesis 6:5 before the Flood, and Genesis 8:21 after the Flood).
Jesus sees the same thing about our world and our hearts. He taught that evil does not come from outside but from inside of each person. “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander (Matthew 15:19).” By heart the Bible does not mean a muscle in your chest that pumps blood. The heart is what makes you, you! It’s what drives you to think a certain way, to pursue certain goals, hold certain people and ideas in honor and others in disgrace. The Bible teaches that the basic problem with each person’s heart is that it is sinfully obsessed with itself, making us slaves to sin.
Now we see the problem with obeying the Fifth Commandment and why God gave it to us. We live in an abnormal, fallen world. We are born abnormal, and sin twists our reasoning and trips up our actions. A proper doctrine of sin reminds us that when we read the Fifth Commandment, we experience our own sinful hearts more than we understand God’s holy heart. We resist this commandment not because there is a problem with the commandment, but because there is a problem with us.
A young man abandoned by his father or mother reads, “Honor your father and your mother,” and says, “Why would God want me to honor that person; that’s stupid! They left me and that’s not right!” What the angry young man or woman does not ask is, “Why would God want me to have a mother AND a father in the first place? What is their purpose?” He also doesn’t ask, “Where do I get this idea that I am OWED a father and mother and they must treat me the RIGHT way?” Do you hear? The young man’s frustration is not about God’s purpose and design for the family; it’s about life in a sinful, abnormal world and how sin has affected him personally: his parents, who are supposed to reflect God, instead reflect Adam.
What is he really angry at? He is angry at sin that disrupts and destroys God’s purposes for fathers and mothers. I have never heard someone share a story with me about a terrible parent without hearing in their voice a clear expectation that they deserved someone better, someone who would fulfill the purpose of motherhood or fatherhood. The same child who chants, “No law and authority,” hates that his father never provided for him and his siblings, and that hatred of a failed father is an appeal to law and authority! The bright young woman who believes that there are no objective standards to define womanhood, deeply resents her mother for NOT being what a “real mom” should be. If motherhood and womanhood are truly fluid and simply “social constructs,” on what grounds does this angry young woman judge her own mom? Children don’t want parents to do whatever makes THEM happy. We want a mom and dad to be good parents, to provide for us, protect us, love us, teach us, and build us up, be willing to sacrifice for us so as to do that. The Lord wants exactly these things from our parents too, and our Father in heaven shows us by his example what a father should be like.
Our next look at the Fifth Commandment will see how earthly fatherhood comes from God’s Fatherhood.
-- Hunter Jackson
Do You Celebrate Christmas?
The Likely Origin of the Question and Answers for Today -- Parts IVb, V and VI
A Paper Submitted by John D. Edgar
DM 08: Biblical Worship
January 11, 2019
IVb. The Scriptural teaching on festivals, continued
The writings of the apostle Paul appear to point in different directions on the celebration of days. What appears to be contradictory, however, will prove to be helpful when we analyze "celebrating Christmas" into component parts. Let us look at some relevant passages:
Romans 14:5-10: "One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each
one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in
honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if
we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are
the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
"Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all
stand before the judgment seat of God."
1 Corinthians 10:19-21: "What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is
anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be
participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the
table of the Lord and the table of demons."
1 Corinthians 10:25-31: "Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of
conscience. For 'the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.' If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and
you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience. But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, for the sake of the one who informed you, and for the sake of conscience – I do not mean your conscience, but his. For why should my liberty be determined by someone else’s conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks?
"So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."
Galatians 4:8-11: "Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not
gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to
the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe
days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain."
Colossians 2:15-18: "He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over
them in him.
"Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind."
There are several things to note. One is that there is a kind of observing days and months that is utterly at odds with the gospel. This kind of observation constitutes slavery to the elementary principles of the world, and puts us in danger of losing our salvation (Galatians 4:10-11). Yet we must also note that we are to shun judgment where days are concerned. We are not to let others judge us in questions of festivals or Sabbaths (Colossians 2:16), nor are we to judge our brothers about observing days (Romans 14:5,10). God is the judge, and he will judge between his servants when they differ among themselves in regards to days (Romans 14:5-6). What matters most is that whatever we do, we do it to God's glory (1 Corinthians 10:31, Romans 14:8), being fully convinced in our own minds (Romans 14:5).
What must be elucidated is the relation of the Galatians passage to the others. In Galatians, we are not to observe days, months, seasons, and years. In Romans, we are not to make an issue of them. In Colossians, we are to refuse to let others judge us in regards to them.
The seemingly different instructions must be rooted in different situations and contexts. The Galatians were abandoning their faith in Jesus in order to follow the works of the law. This was outrageous, since they had received the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus (Galatians 3:1-2). They had to be warned that the law had been a tutor, to bring God's people to Christ, but that in Christ they had received their adoption, and were no longer slaves to the tutor (Galatians 3:23-4:7). Their observation of days constituted a return to childhood slavery, and an abandonment of their Lord. They did not, in fact, need to celebrate Yom Kippur or Passover. To assert that God still required the feasts was to misrepresent God and misconstrue the basis of their relationship with him.
To apply these words to Christmas requires first an interpretive step. In context, the days the Galatians were wrongly observing were most likely the feasts of the Torah, given the polemic about the Mosaic law that we find throughout the letter. But we can move to Christmas through applying the how-much-more reasoning we meet so often in Jesus. If they were not to observe days God had established, as if they were necessary, then how much more are we not to observe days the church has established, as if they are necessary. The Holy Spirit guided Paul to write generally of 'days and seasons' so that the words would have this wider application.
We must not think that the observation of Christmas is necessary to our salvation. It is not a work that brings us closer to God, or that earns merit before him. We are not to be in any way enslaved by the day, bound in conscience to do one thing or another. Celebrating Christmas with church or family is not connected with our justification, and bears no necessary connection to our sanctification.
So, holidays as a salvific necessity is forcefully rejected in Galatians. But if anyone would insist that we must celebrate the day for some other reason, we are in the area addressed by Colossians 2. We are 'not to let anyone judge us', which being at one level an impossibility, must mean that we are not to be controlled or inhibited by the judgment of others. We answer to God, not to them, so we are not to give them a position of authority, which is not theirs to assume.
But once the notion of spiritual necessity is removed (Galatians), and we understand and live out our freedom as God's children (Colossians), then we are in the area described in the book of Romans. To observe a day in honor of the Lord is a thing indifferent. One brother will observe the day, another will not. We must leave judgment about such matters to God. If one observes the day, let him observe it to God, and God will be his judge. If another does not, God is his judge as well. We are not to judge our brothers, or be controlled by their judgments of us.
In this way we bring together the related Scriptures: special days are not to be observed as a thing necessary, or in fear of man's judgment, but may be observed by God's free children so long as they do so in faith and for God's glory.
But there is an additional Puritan concern that must be addressed: the question of idolatry. One can raise the question in a historical vein. If Christmas in fact stems from Saturnalia, then must we not flee from it? If the Christmas tree has a pagan origin, should we not shun it? The Israelites were not to compromise or even ignore the Canaanite idols; they were to destroy them. One can also raise the question theologically: whatever its origin, Christmas is man-made, therefore idolatrous, and idolatry is to be destroyed, not adopted.
These questions are in part dealt with via the canonical status of Purim and the Lord's participation in Hanukkah. But they are also addressed by passages in 1 Corinthians 8 & 10. In that day, much if not all of the meat for sale in the meat markets had been previously sacrificed to idols in pagan temples. A bull might first be offered to Zeus in the temple, then its remaining meat sold at the market. Given the Biblical injunction to flee from idols, could a Christian possibly eat that meat?
Perhaps surprisingly, the Holy Spirit directed Paul to write that a Christian could eat it, so long as he was clear in his conscience that idols have no real existence, received his food with thankfulness to God, and wounded no other believer in the process. A Christian could eat whatever was set before him, so long as eating was not explicitly tied to the worship of idols. [1]
If meat that had been roasting in Zeus' temple three hours earlier could be received with thankfulness, then concerns over the origin of Christmas and its tree are misplaced. If past pagan usage does not stain the steak, it will not stain the tree or the date. What must be avoided is any return to pagan worship, or weakening of the faith of our brother.
However, the Puritan concern about worship not required by God has considerable force. God shows his concern for his worship in the second commandment, as well as in many other places. The issue then becomes the relation of Christmas to worship. We are not to worship God in any way not commanded in his Word. But we are also not to judge our brother for observing a day, so long as no one is enslaved by days and years. Where does worship end and observing a day begin?
V. Christmas must be analyzed into its component parts
As we have seen, the Puritans met Christmas in a different context from us. They were not far removed from the enforced Roman Catholic calendar of the Middle Ages. We in America have never lived under such a calendar. They were forbidden to work and required to attend church on Christmas by king and state church. We have neither king nor state church, we are free to attend the church of our choice, we do have a national holiday that closes schools and most offices but does not close stores. In some cases, they were told it was a sin to work on a church-appointed holiday. We do not labor under such teaching. They lived in a culture that used the holiday as an excuse for riotous drunken excess, gambling, and becoming a public nuisance. Our culture does not see such roving bands in the second half of December.
Celebrating Christmas thus must be analyzed into its different parts. If a family celebrates Christmas, they likely buy presents, put them under a pine tree specially brought indoors for the occasion, buy, cook, and eat large amounts of food and drink, hang stockings by the fireplace, and perhaps tell lies about Santa Claus. They may play special music, perhaps Scripture set to music (Handel's Messiah), or hymns written for the occasion (Christmas carols), or an ever-expanding array of more meaningless popular songs about snow, love and home. They may decorate the house with red and green knickknacks or a manger scene. The family may or may not open the Bible and read Matthew 1 or Luke 2, but it is likely the family gathers in greater numbers than usual. Some combination of the above factors is suggested by saying a family celebrates Christmas.
If a church celebrates Christmas, that suggests a different array of activities. At one end would be a church such as the one I attended growing up: celebrating Christmas means a weeknight dinner at the church with carols, with the singing perhaps taken out into the neighborhood's streets. More common would be the church that calls a special service for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Most elaborate would be those churches that put on a Christmas pageant, complete with children in special garments and taught the roles to play. A church in my own city recently gave up on bringing animals into their manger scene – the cow kept wandering off and getting onto the highway. These possible activities can be described by the brief phrase 'celebrating Christmas,' but they are actually quite different things.
If a nation celebrates Christmas, this would at the least indicate a day that schools and offices are closed. The nation might go further and forbid work. The chief executive might issue a proclamation glorifying God for sending his Son. And if a culture celebrates Christmas, this might mean a time set aside for gambling (as in England in the sixteenth century), or a time for especially intense shopping (as in America in the twenty-first century), or a time when God is actually praised through public music (as in the school district of my childhood).
Do you celebrate Christmas? That may very well depend on what is meant by the phrase. Celebrating Christmas looks different in the church, in the family, in the state, and in the culture, and even families and churches that celebrate it may be doing different things. Keeping in mind both the breadth of Christian practice, and the incisiveness of the Puritan critique, let us attempt to analyze what options are open to a godly family and church.
VI. The component parts of Christmas analyzed in light of Scripture
A) The nation
If the Jews legitimately established both Purim and Hanukkah as national holidays giving thanks to God for his deliverance, then not only July 4 but also December 25 are rightly celebrated in these United States. Not only is the national celebration of Christmas legitimate, it is most good and right: a nation that remembers the birthdays of such deliverers as Washington, Lincoln, and King must honor the memory of its greater king and deliverer Jesus Christ. The closing of schools and offices and the issuing of public proclamations in his honor is a most proper action for any nation.
The only caveat to be made is that the conscience of the citizen should not be bound. The Brownists and Puritans should be heard and permitted to live as they believe is right in the sight of God. So, no nation should require attendance at a worship service on Christmas, or require that private citizens cease from their labor. God did command six days to labor, and one to rest, and while nations may establish special days as festivals, they may not insist that every citizen enter into the festivities.
B) The culture
Within the culture, we should do all to the glory of God. So let songs of gladness ring at Christmas – they did at the first Christmas.[2] If we buy presents for friends, let us remember what was written about Purim and also provide for the poor. There are numerous ways to do so. But let us shun what is sinful in itself. It was not to England's glory that it specifically permitted gambling to the common people during the twelve days of Christmas. Better to specifically ban it!
C) The family
It is sinful to tell lies. Therefore, Santa Claus should not be held out as in any way a real figure. Stockings may be hung by the mantle, but there should never be any idea that a fat man in a red suit will come down the chimney to fill them. Stories about reindeer may be read, but only in the same vein as stories about Zeus or magical Nutcrackers. Still less should we encourage blasphemous songs that attribute omniscience to the imaginary Mr. Claus.[3]
The wise family will also use the occasion to teach against greed, envy, and anger. If circumstances seem to overwhelm the teaching, change the practice so as to lessen the temptation. Fathers and mothers should not lead their children into temptation. But once these necessary guidelines are laid down, each family is to decide for itself how to do all to the glory of God. They are not to be controlled or judged by those outside. They are to honor father and mother, yet leave father and mother to cleave to wife or husband. As we are left free to observe or not observe days in Romans 14, so families are sovereign in their own sphere to observe Christmas as they see fit, if at all. Only, whatever they do, let them do all to the glory of God.
D) The church
Finally, we come to the church. Daniel Hyde, writing within the Dutch Reformed tradition, comments in a footnote that they need to think more about church discipline for individuals in churches that call for services outside of the Lord's Day.[4] Actually this should not require much thought at all. God alone is Lord of the conscience and has left it free from the commandments of men, which are in anything contrary to his Word, or beside it, if matters of faith or worship.[5] If a church member has a conscientious objection to Christmas, his session should leave him alone along the lines of Romans 14. Jesus is his judge in this matter, not his elders. To require his attendance is to claim too much authority for the church. The church has authority as far as Christ has given it authority, and no further. Therefore a church may propose, but not impose. It may call for a fast or celebration, but not discipline those who abstain. The elders are Christ's under shepherds, not legislators or drill sergeants.
As for whether a special Christmas or Christmas Eve service is advisable, that depends on local factors. It should not be an ordinary service which members are required to attend, for that exceeds the authority of the church. It should not be an extraordinary service that eclipses the ordinary service, lest a Christmas-and-Easter Christianity be encouraged. But an evangelistic service that calls us all to marvel in awe at the grace of God poured out in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ would not be out of place on December 25, because it would not be out of place at any time whatsoever. Such a service might be an excellent time to bring unbelievers to hear the gospel. Or, such a service might be an intolerable burden on a scattered and poor congregation. So, the local session should decide whether to have a special church service on or around Christmas, while modestly refraining from requiring attendance.
People the world over celebrate festivals, often in honor of their gods. The living God is not opposed in principle to festivals in his own honor, as we have seen. But every good gift is to be received with thanksgiving and reverence, and the worship of God is to be kept pure and entire. Both Puritans and Quakers quite reasonably objected to the riotous drunkenness and gambling of their own Christmas scene, and the state and church authority that sought to support it. But once compulsion and judgment are removed, we are not to judge our brothers in regards to days. Rather, whether we observe Christmas or abstain, we are to do all to the glory of God, as we anticipate in hope the day when we will recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus in the Kingdom of God.
Please consider re-reading this series as it was originally intended to be read:
as a unified scholarly paper, available here.
The bibliography is also available at this link.
Footnotes:
1. For an example of what 'explicitly' would mean, see 1 Corinthians 10:28: But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it.
2. J. Harold Gwynne makes this suggestive point: we get four songs in quick succession in Luke 1 & 2. Isn't the Scripture showing us that Jesus' arrival was “intended to bring songs to the human heart”? (He includes Elizabeth's extended praise in 1:42-45) See J. Harold Gwynne, The Gospel of Christmas, Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 1938, p. 17.
3. As in, “He knows when you've been sleeping; he knows when you're awake; he knows when you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness' sake!”
4. See Hyde, “Not Holy but Helpful.”
5. Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 20, paragraph 2.
Proverbs Exposition: Wise Women Build Houses
"The wisest of women builds her house,
but folly with her own hands tears it down."
– Proverbs 14:1
How does a wise woman build her house, even in a society where men overtly hold the reins of power as in ancient Israel? 1) Like Ruth and Mary she bears children, knowing that salvation comes from the offspring of women (Genesis 3:15, Ruth 4:11, Luke 1:38, I Timothy 2:15). Those who disdain mothers as mere “breeders” are badly warped in their thinking. 2) Like Abigail, a wise woman decisively protects her household from imminent danger, even against the wishes of a foolish husband (I Samuel 25). 3) Like Lydia, a wise woman builds her house by working diligently with her own hands; she is successful at business (Acts 16, see Proverbs 31). 4) Like Leah and Rachel, who despite their rivalry and disappointments with husband Jacob, stood with him against their father Laban, knowing that for their new family they had left father and mother (Genesis 31, Psalm 45).
How does a foolish woman pull down her own house? By carelessly, or spitefully, adopting destructive habits that alienate and impoverish her family. She commits adultery with another man – or woman. She spends money the family does not have, or invests the family fortune foolishly in what she does not understand. She mocks, undercuts, and derides her man, robbing him of confidence and courage. She demands her own way, even with tears and threats, until she gets what she wants. She whispers to her children that she, not their father, really loves them, while she subtly undercuts his authority.
In every domain, whether family, or church, or workplace, or country, people can act to build or pull down. Tearing down a house with one’s own hands requires hard, often angry work, but it is easy to get started: just do what comes naturally, that is, put your own whims and desires first, and when they are thwarted, destroy! Every husband, like every church and workplace, has faults, so a wife can always justify pulling down her house, maybe even while crying for justice. Building, like destroying, is also hard. It requires daily work, patience with the imperfections of others, and above all, love. The wife who takes the tear-down path brings suffering on herself and others, because when a house is torn down everyone loses. But in the prosperity of her household, a wife will find her prosperity, just like the exiled Jews found their prosperity in Babylon’s prosperity. “The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish pulls it down with her hands,” not just by doing nothing when she should be working, but by tearing things apart with her own hands, feet, and especially tongue.
– Bill Edgar
The 2021 Synod
A simple change in the name of our presbytery may be in order. Perhaps “Atlas?” The weight of Synod '21 seemed to fall on our Presbytery’s shoulders. First, Bruce Martin was called upon to moderate the 189th Synod in the absence of the previous moderator, now serving Reformed Presbyterian Church of Australia. Martin is such a skilled moderator that he wrapped up that Synod (for 2020), with no dissent, in mere minutes. Moments later, he convened the 190th Synod (for 2021) before passing the torch to Bruce Parnell, pastor of Stillwater OK.
Bruce Parnell was my internship pastor in 2001, and Noah Bailey had the honor of serving alongside him in Enid, OK. Parnell is the nicest, most mild mannered man you'll ever meet. Great in one sense for a potentially divisive synod, as no one could dare accuse him of favoritism. But was his personality strong enough for such a controversial synod? Yes! In fact, he did a stellar job, leading us to complete a mountain of work in a very short time. He told me he was concerned about the number of times his rulings were challenged. But he usually won the challenge, and being challenged is a sign of a strong moderator, willing to make hard calls!
Back to Atlantic's role. Parnell appointed John Edgar to chair the Immanuel church case (along with Gabe Wingfield... he's still one of us, right?). Daniel Howe chaired the Lefevbre case, and Bruce Martin chaired the nominating committee with its two years' worth of offices to fill. Being Parnell's former intern has its advantages. I was given the creampuff chair of the State of the Church Committee. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday began with fantastic sermons on the fruit of the Spirit from... Atlantic. Bailey, Edgar, and Howe. Each one was short, to the point, and moving.
Tuesday's business was relatively pleasant. The committee tasked with determining how to make church members of prison inmates gave their report. Can someone who turns to Christ in jail become a member of the local church? Or might there even be a church formed within the prison? It's a complicated question, requiring deep thought on ecclesiology. The committee included a majority and a minority report, usually a sign of trouble. In the end, Synod gave some direction but sent the same committee back to work, with both majority and minority parties the best of friends, eager to solve the problems.
Tuesday also featured the comical highlight of the Synod. Six Canadian churches are very close to forming the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Canada. Virtually everyone is thrilled with this possibility! After twenty minutes of the Canadians defending themselves from unspecified objections, including emphasizing that there is no pope or bishop among them pushing for this move, the assistant clerk Brian Wright moved to the microphone on the podium. Wright offered some reason why perhaps the Canadian RPC was premature. Andrew Quigley, pastor of the Ottawa RPC, was present via Zoom, and visible on the Jumbotron above and behind Brian. As Brian walked back to his table, Andrew told him to get back to the podium. Quigley then leaned over his pulpit – seen via Zoom – and, looking slightly down towards Wright, he proceeded to quiz Brian on his belief in a national church. “Quiz” is being polite. “Interrogate” is probably more appropriate, with the thirty-foot tall Jumbotron Quigley flattening poor Brian.
When Synod reconvened, Atlantic, through Noah Bailey and Alex Tabaka, presented our lengthy paper on the foundation of marriage. This paper was the culmination of a decade of work seeking to combat the alarming, almost no-fault divorce position being taught by Adjunct Professor Scipione at the Seminary. When Synod 2019 failed again to rule on the issue, our guys wrote a 75-page paper on the issue. It passed overwhelmingly. A highlight was someone from the opposition asking if anyone had interacted with Bucer's position on divorce. The question was asked in such a way that it seemed to be a 'gotcha' question. Tabaka schooled the questioner in response, laying out all the historical connections to Bucer, concluding that the Westminster position was largely and clearly a repudiation of... you guessed it... Bucer! Though John Edgar and Daniel Howe were heavily involved in writing the paper, they were unable to be part of the discussion, because of committee work that day. But their writing, combined with Tabaka and Bailey’s defense of it, was strong enough to prevail.
The two recommendations of the marriage paper clearly established the foundation of marriage that we've worked for the past decade to clarify. The second recommendation also established that “desertion,” as a reason for divorce, means “physical desertion.” Even though a last-minute amendment to recommendation two could possibly be used to weaken it, the paper now becomes an official Synod position paper.
Pacific Coast Presbytery (PCP) has had a difficult year thus far. Multiple charges had been brought against Bob Hackett, pastor of the Shelter congregation in Edmonton, AB, Canada. Brought to trial in early May, multiple shenanigans ensued from the defense. Ultimately, Hackett refused to attend the trial, likely recognizing the enormous weight of evidence against him. He has since split the congregation, left the denomination and formed a new congregation under Hanover Presbytery. As the games were being played, but before Bob officially departed, PCP asked Synod to adjudicate the case. Synod met after Bob's departure and returned jurisdiction to PCP with advice, clarification, and encouragement for them to complete their work. PCP met the next day, and deposed the former Rev. Hackett. In no way is he any longer a pastor with credentials in the RPCNA.
Next on Synod's agenda was a consideration of a brief paper from Frank Smith of Atlanta, written in the aftermath of Michael Lefevbre’s publications on Genesis 1-4. After lengthy debate, Synod settled on two key clarifications: 1) Belief in the “literal parentage of Adam and Eve as our first parents” is an essential part of Reformed doctrine, and thus elders are not at liberty to take exception to it; and 2) “Theistic evolution” is also NOT compatible with the Westminster Confession/RP Testimony position on creation.
On Thursday, Synod took up the case of Immanuel RPC, Indiana. Criminal behavior of one minor against other minors led to investigations by both the magistrate and Presbytery. The Presbytery commission recommended that all of the elders resign, but they refused, and several complaints and petitions followed. Our John Edgar chaired the committee to lead Synod's deliberations. After some exchanges, it was agreed that Synod would assume jurisdiction of the case, and the moderator would appoint a seven-man commission to continue the judicial process. The commission needs to be appointed by this year’s Synod Moderator. (I have told my family not to answer any phone calls from the state of Oklahoma! Though if appointed, I will serve...) This is an extraordinarily difficult case. Pray about it.
Synod effectively concluded with the Lefebvre case proper. Having established the bounds of the Confession and Testimony earlier, there was no actual question that Lefebvre had gone beyond the bounds of his vows. But now it was up to Pastor Howe's committee to guide us in understanding several petitions and complaints from both sides, which included a MOUNTAIN of documentation and paperwork (nearly 400 pages). The committee came back, siding with Lefebvre against Great Lakes Gulf Presbytery (GLG) in procedural matters. Synod, on the other hand, as demonstrated earlier with the Smith/Evolution debate, was in no mood to support a heretic.
{Clarification: Several readers have asked about this term referring to Michael LeFebvre as a “heretic.” The word “heretic” attempted to summarize the tone of Synod’s discussion of a committee report, which dealt with many pages of reports and complaints from Great Lakes Gulf Presbytery. Synod made no ruling as to whether LeFebvre is a “heretic,” and neither did it vindicate him. For a review of LeFebvre’s recent book, The Liturgy of Creation, see A Little Strength 4.3, p 9. -- editors, 9/22/2021}
Debate began with a GLG elder effectively accusing the court of impropriety. The Synod, through the committee, was to conduct a hearing – and hear both sides. Instead, all they examined were the documents, each complaint/petition presenting only the writer's position. There was, in fact, more testimony and evidence needed to adjudicate the various complaints, but the committee had not heard them. Howe's response was that there was not time to do all of that in such a short committee (meeting in parallel with Synod), when faced with the Everest of documents already on their plate. Hindsight being 20/21, the committee had been put in an impossible position by the recommendation of the business of synod committee, who had tasked the one committee with examining each complaint/petition, and all of the documentation, in the space of 48 hours. This effort should have been assigned to multiple committees.
So debate raged on. A key point of dispute involved a request to change Lefebvre's trial date. It was alleged that GLG was unfair to Michael in its unwillingness to postpone the trial to a date convenient for his defense attorney. (I'll not name the attorney, but suffice it to note that he is a member of the “Atlas” Presbytery, even though no one would confuse him with Atlas.) GLG's Ad-Interim Commission (AIC) reported that they would have been open to the possibility of postponing, but they never received that request. Apparently, Lefebvre's team sent a request to the GLG moderator, but not the AIC. Then, rather than attempt to convince the AIC of the propriety of postponement, Lefebvre decided instead his trial wasn't going to be “fair,” and he then left the denomination.
The big question Synod had to decide was whether there should have been a trial postponement, and the finer point, whether a postponement had ever been properly requested. Synod sided with AIC's version of events, that they had never received such a request. GLG's moderator made a flimsy attempt to demonstrate that AIC had, in fact, received the request, at one point gesturing to Synod's moderator that it was “right here on my laptop.” But he never told the court what that evidence was! After the key vote, another GLG elder told me that the evidence was the AIC's email addresses all listed in the cc field of the email request that was sent to the GLG moderator. That would have been definitive evidence, but why did not the GLG moderator simply point that out to the court? It was also noteworthy that in the middle of the debate, a GLG prosecutor suggested there was evidence of a conspiracy to avoid trial altogether. Unlike the GLG moderator, he did back it up with email evidence. Lefebvre's defenders were suspiciously silent against that statement, which made a notable impact on the court.
As we came to voting on the actual recommendations of the Howe committee, it was clear that Synod was not pleased with Michael LeFebvre and may have taken out their frustration on the committee. Several recommendations came before the court, some “to sustain the complaint;” some “to not sustain.” Rather than simply vote down the committee recommendations (which would have then required a second motion from the floor to vote up the opposite), amendments to the recommendations were made from the floor. One by one, Synod flipped the recommendations of the committee from “sustain” to “not sustain” and vice-a-versa, then voted up the opposite of what the committee recommended. There was a legitimate reason to do that; we would have come to the same conclusion regardless, but I can't help but think certain members wanted to “twist the dagger” a little by doing it that way.
The one notable exception to the committee came with the last recommendation. A petition paper had come in calling for Lefebvre to be recalled and tried. The backstory is, upon resigning and leaving the RPCNA, GLG granted Mr. Lefebvre his ministerial credentials. The trouble is, he has not transferred to another denomination, so it doesn't seem there was any way constitutionally to give him his credentials! So, while Mr. Lefebvre seemed to be officially outside our jurisdiction, having left the church, constitutionally, it seemed we must still hold his credentials, and therefore he was still under our jurisdiction. The petition was to put him on trial. But because of the morally dubious nature of recalling a man whom GLG seems to have released, just enough elders voted with the committee to not sustain the petition. There will be no trial.
This result triggered a member of Synod to ask to have his dissent to the vote registered. Then another. Then another... Eventually, the clerk laid a piece of paper on the stage and simply asked for all who wished to have their dissent registered to come sign it. In my twenty years of synods, I've never seen a line so long formed to register dissent! With that, the hard work of Synod concluded. A handful of boilerplate reports followed and Synod adjourned – on time! With all work completed!
I'm frequently asked what direction the RPCNA is heading, especially in light of the troubles in the PCA. Most years, Synod is a mixed bag, with slow progress in the direction of what many would call “conservatism.” This year, the “right” had the majority. An eventful year (or two!), as Christ builds up his Church.
– Paul Brace
Thoughtful Questions:
Complementary?
God's Judgment via Covid?
1. Are men and women complementary?
“Complementarianism is a theological view in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam that men and women have different but complementary roles and responsibilities in marriage, family life, and religious leadership. The word ‘complementary’ and its cognates are currently used to denote this view.” (Wikipedia definition)
I assiduously avoid the term “complementary” when talking about men and women. I also avoid the term “egalitarian.” Such abstract terms, recently invented, mislead more than they help. They give their users unhelpful spectacles with which to read the Bible, understand how men and women should cooperate, and characterize the views of others.
“Complementary” does have a precise geometric meaning: complementary angles add up to a right angle. One analogous fact about men and women merits their being called “complementary.” One male and one female together can make another human being. Three are no good; one is no good; it takes two. (The technical and exploitative “surrogacy” path to having children involves an egg from the surrogate mother, sperm from the would-be father, in vitro fertilization, and then gestation in the surrogate mother. It is still two! The legal mother contributes nothing to the process except money.) In almost all cases, a mother gives half the chromosomes to a baby and the father the other half. A baby with a doubled X chromosome is a female, and one with a Y chromosome paired with an X is a male. Anyone can tell which is which at the moment of birth and have been doing so since Adam and Eve had Cain.
Does the word “complementary” help in discussing the relationship between male and female? Not really. Neither does it help when discussing church officers, nor what occupations men and women should fill. When it is used to define the “essence” of masculinity or femininity, it can be exceedingly harmful. “Complementary” to describe men and women belongs on the ash heap of discarded terms. It obscures our common humanity: men and women are far more alike than they are different. They are both humans made in God’s image.
2. Is Covid God’s judgment on a sinful world?
Of course it is. All the malign powers of the world are part of God’s judgment on a rebellious humanity, from trouble with raising crops, to bearing children, to volcanoes, tsunamis, droughts, floods, and earthquakes to death itself. Each particular trouble is a revelation of God’s wrath against a sinful world. We should not be shy in saying so.
However, God has not given us the insight to connect any particular trouble with any particular sin. Is Covid God’s punishment for four years of Trump’s presidency? Is it his punishment for a world that kills babies before they are born? No one can say so unless he can say with a Hebrew prophet, “Thus says the Lord.” Nevertheless, Covid is another manifestation of God’s revealing his wrath against a world that will not give him thanks nor glorify him as God (Romans 1:18ff).
Covid reveals another thing: the superiority of the father-mother-child[ren] family over all alternatives. The father-mother-child[ren] family has a robust stability when trouble comes. Better yet is when that family has grandparents and siblings nearby and is part of a closely-knit church. The ancient household provided more strength in hard times than today’s often lonely “nuclear” family and vastly more than the single parent family.
– Bill Edgar
Book Reviews:
Darwin Devolves
by Michael J. Behe
New York, HarperOne: 2019, 342 pp.
What It Means to Be Human:
The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics
by O. Carter Snead
Cambridge, Harvard University Press: 2020, 321 pp.
Today’s publicly controversial Bible teaching about man is no longer original sin or the nature of God’s image in man. It is the first six words of the Westminster Shorter Catechism’s answer to the question, “What is man?” “God created man, male and female….” The first two words affirm that wisdom – mind – God Almighty – created us. Behe’s book affirms those two words. The next four words describe the material unity of the human race and its physical diversity as either male or female. Snead affirms the next four words.
Today’s Western world is schizophrenic. On the one hand, most university-educated people believe that all life evolved from prior life by the mechanism of natural selection – note how the word “selection” smuggles in the idea of intelligent choice – acting on random DNA mutations. Some then explicitly draw the conclusion that there is therefore no “mind” anywhere, including in humans. On the other hand, most university-educated young people believe that human identity is only tangentially connected to one’s body: you are what you believe you are in your mind, and others are duty-bound to accept your stated version of yourself. The first conviction is decidedly materialist; the second is the opposite.
In his first book, Darwin’s Black Box, Behe argued that only Mind explains the ordered complexity microbiologists have discovered inside each cell. Neo-Darwinian evolution cannot account for the complex structures in every living organism that require each piece to be in place for it to work. Step by step mutations inherited by future generations cannot have produced what he calls, by analogy, the “mousetraps” that make up living beings. In his new book, Darwin Devolves, Behe discusses the few well-known instances found in biology textbooks of small-scale evolution, for example, the variety of finches on the Galapagos Islands descended from an original pair, or polar bears descended from brown bears. In each case, very recent research shows that the “evolution” resulted from genes mutating in such a way that DNA information was lost. After showing the woeful inadequacy of recent efforts to amend neo-Darwinian theory, and also the failure of evolutionary scientists to refute his first book, Behe ends with a discussion of the reasons scientists cling to Darwin as to a lifeline: in addition to social and professional pressure, the alternative of a creative Mind is too horrible to contemplate.
Snead’s book deals with the “expressive individualism” that dominates public discussions of social affairs and the law. He traces its origin to the 17th Century English philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke who begin their political theories with isolated, fearful individuals living in a “state of nature.” Their “person” is rational, fully-grown, and independent, capable of choosing what is best, either to submit to an all-powerful state (Hobbes’ “Leviathan”) or to give some natural rights to a government in order to safeguard remaining rights (Locke’s social contract). Snead argues that this reductive view of a person misses the radical dependency on other people that comes with our being embodied souls. The baby, the disabled, and the old must rely on others for sustenance and life because of the weakness of their material bodies. Being human includes dependence on others. In fact, even the healthy and rational person actually depends on others all the time (did you grow the wheat for that sandwich you ate for lunch?). The free rational person, independent of all others, for whom “choice” is the highest expression of humanity, does not exist. At a minimum everyone starts as a dependent baby, but expressive individualism only understands the isolated self, with no un-chosen connections, obligations, or responsibilities.
Both materialist evolution and expressive individualism teach a false anthropology (doctrine of personhood). The first implicitly and sometimes explicitly erases the person’s mind and the second makes the human body a mere tool by which to express one's chosen self. In the bulk of his book, Snead shows how radical expressive individualism underlies Supreme Court decisions on abortion, end of life issues, and assisted reproduction. Behe shows how materialist evolution leads to irrationalism and the end of personhood.
Neither book is written for specialists, but each is hard going in places. If you get Snead’s book, start with his second chapter, “An Anthropological Solution,” read it slowly, and you will understand the ideology that underlies abortion on demand, sex change surgery, and euthanasia. Read it together with Behe’s book, which he acknowledges may require readers to skim some pages. After reading Snead’s book, you may want to begin calling yourself a materialist! In our bodies, God made us male (XY chromosome pair) and female (XX chromosome pair), and God will resurrect our bodies at Judgment Day. After reading Behe’s book, you will want to insist that you have a mind that can think true thoughts, using reason, mathematics, and the laws of logic – none of which are material. After all, God made you in his image! I highly recommend each book.
– Bill Edgar
Stories of Evangeline: How Miss Metheny Visited a Great Woman
by Rev. Remo I. Robb
Reprint from the Covenanter Witness, April 21, 1948, p. 255
“When will you visit the Great Woman?” asked Miss Metheny’s Syrian companion, shortly after she went to live in the mountains.
“Oh?” replied Miss Metheny. “I did not know of a Great Woman. Is there really one here?”
“Indeed there is. She lives in the Mohammedan village down the valley to the west.”
“Then we must visit her, by all means.” And that’s the way this story begins.
It is not uncommon for a village to be made famous by a woman. The Bible tells about one who helped the prophet Elisha. 2 Kings 4:8 reads: “And it fell on a day, that Elisha passed to Shunem, where was a great woman, and she constrained him to eat bread.” As the story continues, it appears she pretty well gave the orders in her household and even in the village. One wonders how any woman can come to be called “great” in that eastern country where women are given so little opportunity for education or advancement.
It comes about through different ways, but most commonly, I suppose, through control of wealth. Here in some village a man through shrewd moneymaking schemes makes for himself a goodly fortune. He is called the “Village Merchant.” When men want to borrow money they go to him. He drives hard bargains but there is no one else from whom to borrow so the men have to accept his terms. He mortgages their homes, their livestock, their possessions, until they are virtually his slaves. If they do not do exactly as he says, he threatens to call in their loans or take their belongings. So they live in a state of perpetual bondage to him.
Now, the chief pride of an Oriental is his oldest son. He likes to think of how the family name will be handed on from one generation to another. He likes to think of leaving his fortune to the oldest son and of having him carry on the business for years to come. Once in a while a man has no sons, but only a daughter. This may displease him very much, but he can do nothing about it. Therefore, after he dies she inherits his fortune, and if he has been a shrewd merchant such as was mentioned above she comes to control the financial affairs of the village. All the men who borrowed from her father now owe their money to her, and they must do as she says or she will take their property from them. So, being in complete control of their finances, they ask her advice and obey her commands, and she is the Great Woman.
The fame of such a person soon spreads far. All the countryside knows about her and every one watches to see how she gets along. So it was that Miss Metheny’s friends knew well about the Great Woman in the Mohammedan village down the valley to the west.
A few mornings later Miss Metheny with her companions set out to visit the Great Woman. On their horses, followed by the two men who were their bodyguards, they left the village along the winding paths that turned in and out among the curves of the mountains. Along the hilltops there was grass and trees with cattle and sheep feeding everywhere. Down nearer the valley floors the stony clay hillsides were bare and washed. The beds of the streams were most dry, for only in the rainy seasons do they flow in abundance. After some time they came into sight of the village, which was their destination. From still high above it they could look down on the flat roofs of the mud houses. Now, down the steep sides of the hills their horses picked the way carefully, and now to the very bottom of the creek bed and up the far bank into the narrow corridors between the closely packed houses of the village street.
“This is the Great Woman’s house,” said one of the bodyguards.
“Are you sure?” asked Miss Metheny.
“Yes, of course.”
And she did not ask him how he had found out so soon. Rather she dismounted and with her companions went toward the door. Her arrival was by no means a private matter. The children of the village came running from all directions and shouting the news to one another. The dogs, too, were letting it be known by their loud barking.
“Ai-yah!” exclaimed the Great Woman as she greeted them, “I have been looking for you for many days.”
“You have? How did you know that I was around?” asked Miss Metheny.
“Ah, it is in the air. All the mountains know that you, a Christian, are living like one of the people in the village on the mountain top.”
Extended greetings in the Syrian fashion continued for some minutes. Then the Great Woman said, “Come, I must show you to the women of the village.”
She took her outside to the corner of the house, where there were pegs on the two sides of the house built like a ladder going up to the roof. They climbed the pegged stairway and soon were on the flat roof which served as a porch. In the center was a leafy canopy made of poles and thatched with branches of trees. There were rugs and cushions on the flat roof giving it much the appearance of a finely arranged porch.
But as soon as they reached the roof, the Great Woman took Miss Metheny by the arm and led her around the edge, raising her own other arm and calling out “Ho! HO! Ho-O-O!!” in a loud voice. Immediately up the sides of the other houses of the village women began climbing until soon on virtually every other roof top were one or more women looking toward the Great Woman to see what she had for them.
“Come! Come!” continued the Great Woman, “Come and behold! Come and hear! The woman whose works are acceptable before God!”
At the last statement, Miss Metheny interrupted. “What is that you are saying? You, a Mohammedan, are telling these women that my works are acceptable before God? That is equivalent to your saying that I am saved to eternal life even according to your beliefs, which you know I do not accept. How do you say that, knowing that I am a Christian?”
The Great Woman looked at her with the pride of a hostess entertaining a guest of even greater importance, and said, “Oh, we have heard of you for a long time. We knew when you were planning to move to the mountains. All the countryside talked about you, asked questions about you, wondered if something should be done to keep you from coming. The people of the village asked me about you, and I did not know what to tell them. One day a holy man came to the village. He had made the pilgrimage to Mecca. We looked upon him as one who could tell the whole truth. I asked him about you, a Christian woman who was coming to the mountains. He said, “When I was on my pilgrimage I had a vision about that woman and in my vision a voice said, ‘Let no harm come to her. Her works are acceptable before God.’” And the Great Woman continued, “I have told all the men of my village not to hurt nor harm you, for your works are acceptable before God. I am also inviting the women to my house to hear you teach them.”
The women came that afternoon and she did teach them, telling them the rich Good News of salvation with which her heart was filled, and in a manner not to offend her gracious hostess who had opened her house so freely.
As the afternoon sun began its rapid descent toward the setting, the horses were called for. Soon the men appeared with them, and the party left the village of the Great Woman to climb slowly back up the mountain paths.
And as they rode slowly along, Miss Metheny thought back over the days when she doubted whether she should come to the mountains, when fear gripped her heart lest harm should come to her, and when she had almost decided to play safe with her life. “How foolish was I,” she thought to herself. “Even while I was fearful, God was preparing the way for me. Through untrustworthy visions and voices, through the superstitious beliefs of people who live in spiritual darkness, God was preparing for my safety. How great is God and how good!”
How true, too, is His promise! “Fear thou not for I am with thee; be not dismayed for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee, yea I will help thee, yea I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.”
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Authors in this issue
Paul Brace is the pastor of the Hazleton RPC.
Bill Edgar is a retired pastor of Broomall RPC (Philadelphia).
John Edgar is the pastor of Elkins Park RPC (Philadelphia).
Hunter Jackson is a student under care of Atlantic Presbytery and is studying at Westminster Theological Seminary. He is currently serving as pastoral intern at Elkins Park RP Church.
Remo Robb (1899-1957) was born in Canton, China to RP missionaries, became an American RP pastor, and served as Synod's Home Missions Secretary.