1. There is the unjustified and unwarranted statement in III.8, “Nothing in the preceding sections shall be understood so as to prohibit ruling elders from leading in public prayer, reading the Scriptures, leading responsive readings, or, on occasion, exhorting the congregation as part of public worship.”

This statement retains the distinction of ministerial ordination as bestowing executive function of Presbytery, reflecting the principle of the holy catholic church, but only in the sacraments and benediction, while giving it away in other areas, without showing evidence of having reflected deeply on the matter, especially given that it is an innovation from the original order.

It would be well to excise this section. instead, the proposal goes even farther.

2. There are more people in the world than infants and adults. Some kind of majority/minority distinction could more properly be made in respect to baptism.

3. The reception of members by letter of transfer could have shored up the concept of fraternal relation as the proper manner of “recognizing churches of like faith,” rather than leaving this decision up to each Session acting autonomously. This would have given real teeth to the proper view of ecumenicity and holy catholic church.

4. The question of fencing could be stiffened. On the one hand, the current book says “no one shall be allowed to take part in the celebration of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper who has not first made public profession of faith in Jesus Christ as his Saviour and Lord.” (V.4) On the other hand, the rule for self-fencing in IV.C.2 not only does not mention the need to have made public profession, but does not provide any criterion by which the elders could exercise the rule of V.4, since self-fencing is proffered without intervention of the eldership. It even leaves unsettled whether membership as such is actually something necessary or important.

Historically, the situation can be nicely modeled by the thought experiment that I gave earlier of Scripture-reading versus devotional-reading. Probably a church that first relaxed the former to allow the latter would lead to a church split, with the seceders claiming to be the faithful continuation. And I would tend to agree with them. But suppose in God’s providence a century later MOST churches that took a stand for orthodoxy in every other respect had accommodated themselves to the innovation: instead of a weekly reading from Scripture, they had a reading from Lewis, Augustine, or even Scripture. Would we then boycott and insist on starting a church that only read from Scripture? Probably not, but perhaps the matter could start to be discussed anew using the thought-experiment as it might reduce the emotional element. There is at a strong analogy that allows illustrating relevant factors nicely.

So, I would prefer that a church that has instrumental music just have it as a circumstance of worship. I make no claim at all that my own congregation, for example, adheres to the position I would prefer.

If you have a church that makes use of accompaniment in larger meetings, but if there is no accompaniment they don’t seem to think anything is wrong with that and sing praise heartily – then they pretty much have it right, I think. I have had some experience of the Heritage Netherlands Reformed denomination, and that appears to be their approach to music.

Maybe this is putting the cart before the horse, but I do not want to end up thinking that I cannot worship with any group that (1) sings uninspired hymns and (2) uses instrumental music. I could very easily theologize myself out of being able to attend church anywhere in my state of residence – and then I would be stuck with the the delightful duty of trying to start such a group in a territory where there is almost zero interest in such issues (thus, very little prospect that such a group would be sustainable). (I have seen a couple of small works try to start and then fold after a time – it ain’t pretty.)

Of course it is more than just “I don’t want to go that route.” – I think there are sound reasons against such a view, perhaps to be mentioned in another post.

Doug — I think then that we need to distinguish two classes of instrumental accompaniment, one of which is merely circumstantial, and the other verging into a qualitative element. Extend the notion of the pitch pipe a bit. Suppose the people are saying, “we just can’t get this tune.” Maybe the pastor then says, “ok, Jim is going to play the melody on the piano — listen as he plays and sing with it.”

Flash forward five years. The same tune has come up, only now, a wall-shaking organ creates a sense of ecstasy, while at the same time drowning out the sound of anyone singing except myself. Has it not morphed into being an element of worship? At the very least, it has CHANGED an element from what it once was — i.e. I no longer am singing as part of a congregation. I have been made an island. However, I think the emotionally evocative tendency of instrumental music does at least push it in the direction of being a separate element, even if it is not always fully actualized as such.

My time in the OPC was with a mix of Scots, English, and Germans, with the odd duck Greek family thrown in! But AT LEAST, we were all Europeans. Now, it seems, the OPC is going the way of the Babelists as well…..

mene, mene, tekel upharsin.
At least I can still sing the songs out of the Blue Trinity Hymnal, which was a damn fine book! I’d rather remember Machen’s last stand for christendom by that, and the WCF, Rushdoony, and Francis Schaeffer, than the Anfernee Bradley’s of the current ilk….

Now about music and this part:

2.e “Musical gifts are properly used in public worship to assist the congregation in its worship of God… No person may take a special part in the musical service unless he is …” (535-538)

My own position – I am not for the covenanter or Girardeau position that instrumental musical accompaniment is unlawful in itself as a circumstance of worship. Nevertheless, I think we do need to preserve the principle that it is only a circumstance of worship not an essential. Too many times in the PCA, I experienced people being reluctant to sing praise at all if, for example, there was no pianist present.

I think, more than you do I suspect, that the proposed 2.e preserves this balance. It is more explicit in stating that the whole reason for there being this use of musical gifts is merely to assist the congregation in its offering praise. (If accepted, that wording could put a question mark on for example a soloist singing with the congregation just listening, which the current directory language seems to allow. Sometime revisions actually represent a theological advance.) The proposed 2.e does not go so far as to assert that every congregation needs this assistance on every occasion – the mind-set I saw among some in the PCA. In like manner diaconal ministry exists in large measure to assist needy Christians, but that we have deacons does not imply that every member needs diaconal assistance.

Also, it just speaks of musical gifts without asserting that these are necessarily of instrumental music. The RPCI (Irish covenanters) are entirely noninstrumental, yet they recognize musical talent in the form of church choirs. Similarly the Free Church in Scotland is (almost?) entirely noninstrumental to this day, yet it is very common for them to have a musically talented precentor lead the congregational singing of praise.

For these reasons I would not need to take exception to proposed 2.e, though there are other parts of the proposed book that I would have to take exception to.

–Doug

What if the faithful church is reduced to 100 total world-wide at one point in history? Would that be an argument to dilute the message, stop demanding that people really repent, and change, including in the areas mentioned by Joshua?

We all feel the pressure to get the axe-murderer to see the sin of murder and repent of that before he moves on to drunkenness. But in another sense, this is not true. It may be that the totality-presentation of his sin is exactly what the axe-murderer needs to be confronted with. It may indeed be that his sinful use of birth control or sending his kids to be demoralized and corrupted at a government school is just exactly what he needs to hear about in order for the nest of rebellion to come undone, including the for-him more peripheral issue of axing people to death.

It is not for us to say. It is ours to be faithful.

Joshua — your questions do relate to the HCC series so don’t hesitate.

First, if there is an OPC in your town, by all means transfer over, if it would mean an improvement.

The principles I have been laboring to deduce regarding origin and succession mean that an individual cannot start a church, and a remnant should not pretend to be the “successors” of a church unless something judicial happens, preferably getting kicked out for orthodoxy or orthopraxis. However, for the individual, especially in America, there are a number of strands of HCC that can be recognized, even though we lament the diversity. The parish system is the ideal, but we have to layer a number of principles. There might be a Missouri Synod church, pretty good, one block over, and an OPC five miles away. That creates a real decision that has to be thought through.

The principles I have been highlighting will govern when if ever a church can “split off,” but the situation for an individual is a little different, provided one does not stoop to one of the non-churches. To be sure, the negation of easy splitism have consequences for the individual and family as well: once these principles are understood, there will be a lot less church-hopping and more fortitude, more slugging things out, more attempts at reconciliation, than we see now. However, given the lack of national settlement in America, and other issues, there is still some argument for lateral transfer, and faithfulness of the leadership is one criterion. Some self-examination is naturally called for, to make sure you would not be doing it for the usual, and wrong reasons: a preference for more entertainment, laxness, sympathy with someone that got in trouble, a grudge against someone, and so forth.