Is ECO a Reformed Body?
This week I want to address two issues some people are encountering; ECO’s recognition as a Reformed body and some confusion over the term “subscriptionism” regarding the essential tenets for The Fellowship and ECO.
Is ECO a Reformed Body?
When congregations are in the discerning process of leaving the PC(USA), one of the issues that is at stake in some of the Presbytery discussions revolves around the question – What constitutes an approved Reformed body? Some have asked if ECO is a body to which a congregation can be dismissed. According to authoritative interpretation, the three qualifications any denomination must meet are; “doctrinal consistency with the essentials of Reformed theology as understood by the presbytery; government by a polity that is consistent in form and structure with that of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A); of sufficient permanence to offer reasonable assurance that the congregation is not being dismissed to de facto independence. Each presbytery has the right and responsibility to make that decision. To date, three Presbyteries (Tropical Florida, Pueblo, and Olympia) have already approved ECO as an eligible body to which congregations can be dismissed with many other presbyteries now in process.
Some people are asking about membership in the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC). Other people don’t even know the WCRC exists. The WCRC was formed in 2010 by the merger of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and the Reformed Evangelical Council, and is committed to mission, church unity, and justice. ECO will apply for membership toward the end of this year. We need to wait until late 2012 because we need to be able to report the number and location of congregations in ECO, total membership, etc., as well as to be able to more fully participate in the ministry of the WCRC.
Essential Tenets and “Subscriptionism”
Some have voiced concern about “subscriptionism”. Anyone joining either The Fellowship or ECO will be expected to be in agreement with the “essential tenets,” a part of the theology project we presented in Orlando. Essential tenets are nothing new. Every ruling elder, teaching elder, and deacon in the PC(USA) has agreed to “…sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable exposition of what Scripture leads us to believe and do…”.
So why could clarifying what is essential be considered “subscriptionism” and why should anyone care if it is? As we learn from our history (1925-1927), in the midst of the Fundamentalist/Modernist controversy, it was decided we should not specify our “essential” tenets. For a season those beliefs could still be assumed but, over time, many doctrines of the church were subtly eroded: the authority of Scripture, the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection, the divinity of Jesus, etc. Now when we come together in presbytery and General Assembly meetings, the same words can have very different meanings. The problem we are trying to correct is what Lefferts Loescher called “The Broadening Church.” We do not believe broad theological diversity and pluralism are helpful in building flourishing churches to make disciples of Jesus Christ.
But ECO and The Fellowship are committed to restoring clarity by calling people to the core of what it means to be followers of Jesus without fixating on the boundaries. “Subscription” can be undermined simply by crossing your fingers as you sign on the dotted line. Our hope is to do the hard work of re-learning our Reformed heritage and deeply embracing a biblical worldview. Our hermeneutic style needs lots of discussion as we move forward. We have spent years being united by what we were against. Now we need to learn how to join together to affirm what we believe. I believe our hearts are united in such a way that we can do this with grace and clarity. We are attempting to build a new kind of accountable culture, with Jesus Christ at its center.
Jim Singleton
President, The Fellowship of Presbyterians
9 Responses
The “subscriptionism” part says some good things, but still fails to answer the key question that several people have asked on this forum, which is whether being in agreement with the “Essential Tenets” requires 100% agreement with that document, including the nonessentials like its description of how God created humans or its assertion that life in the image of God begins at conception or the exact way it articulates its doctrine of Scripture.
As the polity is currently written, I do not think I could continue as an Elder of my church joined the ECO (at least not without “crossing my fingers” which my conscience would not let me do) because I only agree with about 98% of the document (disagreements being on things I consider nonessential). Can someone here give a straight “yes” or “no” answer as to whether one can disagree with a few scattered phrases in the “Essential Tenets” document and still be welcome in the ECO?
Will ECO apply for membership in the World Reformed Fellowship?
As an outside observer, an ordained minister in the CRC, I would caution your group against joining the WCRC. Many of us in the CRC are not pleased with the leftward-leading, “progressive” direction of the leadership of the WCRC. Check out their statements. Research it thoroughly. Better not to join than to have to withdraw in the not too distant future. Beware of the Accra Confession (as you have of the Belhar – which has been pushed by the WCRC).
This is a sincere question for Allan H.
Would you be able to continue as an Elder if the essentials to which you were assenting were only the parts of the document in bold type?
I ask because that has been my understanding of the standard based on the various responses and statements made along the way. If I am incorrect in that, then hopefully when your question is answered my perspective will be clarified as well.
Brian, the answer to your question is “yes”. I could assent to everything in bold type (although in at least one case I’m not crazy about some wording); my problems are with a few non-bold items.
However, the interpretation where only the bold parts are truly essential is apparently not the case — see the reply to Gwen Brown under the “About ECO” category.
And it really couldn’t be that — for example the part on sexual ethics (equivalent to “fidelity and chastity”) is not in bold, when I bet the ECO leadership considers that “essential” with no wiggle room.
Fascinating…I read the response to Gwen, which certainly does bring correction to my misunderstanding.
What it doesn’t address is your (Allan’s) question about whether or not membership (and, in a case like Allan’s, ordination) allows for latitude on language (or what we might call “scruples” on some of the particular ways that the essentials are expressed).
It’s a tricky thing, I’m sure, and I find myself thinking about the fact that the ECO is trying to model a way of being together that rallies around the “center pole” without spending energy policing the boundaries. I wonder if it would be fair to say that while the document should be read as a whole, that the bold is the pole and the rest emanates out, so that as long as we were willing to agree on the bolded language we might allow latitude in the rest? Or is that just another way of articulating the thing that’s already been corrected?
As a “for instance”, is ECO making room for the Christian who is agnostic about the “how” of creation (i.e. seven 24/hr periods vs. millenia vs. epochs vs. ??), but committed to the orthodox “why” and “what” (i.e. that it was the God of the Bible and for His own good pleasure)? That would seem to be part of what Allan is asking…and not having answered.
Thanks.
The ECO statement of Essentials says nothing about the time period of creation, and so that definitely is left up to individual conscience. Alan mentions his discomfort about wording relating to the creation of humans, but the wording there basically draws on Biblical language about humans reflecting God’s image and being created from the dust of the earth and being made alive by God’s breath. There is nothing in the ECO statement of Essentials that requires a particular interpretation of that Biblical language. For example, I believe the main point of the “dust of the earth” language is that human beings are material beings as well as spiritual beings. Affirming this truth does not answer the question of precisely what process God used to make us. In other words, nothing in the statement of Essentials would preclude belief in an evolutionary history for human beings. Having said that, the statement of Essentials does seem to me to rule out certain kinds of evolutionary explanations for humans. To be specific, a number of contemporary theistic evolution proponents deny that human beings were originally created morally good and then fell. Because evolution is driven by selfishness, they essentially argue that human beings were sinful from the very start. (Karl Giberson advocates this position in his book “Saving Darwin,” which carries a forward by Francis Collins.) ECO’s Essentials document has a strong statement of the original goodness of creation, and so Giberson’s view definitely seems incompatible with it.
John W.,
I hope your generous interpretation of that passage is taken by the ECO; reflecting Biblical poetic language is not a bad thing. But for “Essential Tenets” requiring total adherence (according to the Polity document), ambiguity is not a desirable feature — they could have just said “God created humans” without the additional language that could be interpreted to exclude some orthodox views of how God created.
You bring up that the Essentials document appears to affirm a singular “Fall” from original moral perfection (which arguably owes more to Augustine than to the Bible). This strikes me as another place where it goes beyond essentials — I’d say the “essential” is the fact of universal human sinfulness, while the details of how we got to this state are secondary.
But perhaps that should be generously interpreted also; one could use “the Fall” as a metaphor from church tradition without making essential an Augustinian model of how we came to be in our broken state.
Hard to know whether the spirit of ECO will be that of a Jesus-centered “generous orthodoxy” that would give (within limits) such interpretive freedom or whether it will be more about keeping rigid boundaries — I suspect those headed toward ECO are not of one mind on that.
It would sure be nice if the writer could first define what the initials ECO stand for as I have no clue and could not find it with a google inquiry.
vern
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