In June of 1643, the English Parliament appointed the Westminster Assembly of Divines to restructure the Church of England. The result of this assembly was a group of documents known as “The Westminster Standards.” The Assembly produced and forwarded to Parliament “The Directory for the Publick Worship of God”, “The Form of Presbyterial Church Government”, a creedal statement, “The Westminster Confession of Faith”, a “Larger Catechism” and a “Shorter Catechism”.
In 1788 the American Presbyterians made a few changes to the confession, and one little change to the catechism. Furthermore, they took out many of the proof texts that the original assembly included (I guess they thought that if they didn’t refer to the scripture, then they weren’t bound to consider it any more, *tongue in cheek*). Although I don’t agree with some of the conclusions or doctrine that this man represents, you can read about the changes here: The 1788 Revision.
So the point I want to expose here (and I can’t imagine that nobody else has ever pointed this out), has to do with kicking the ladder out from underneath yourself. Have you ever seen a comedy where someone climbs up a ladder to change a light bulb in a chandelier and inadvertently kicks the ladder over, left only to hang on the chandelier? Ultimately they fall to the ground, having lost their support. This is exactly what the 1788 assembly did to themselves. Let’s take a look:
The Westminster Confession of Faith, 1646, states in Chapter 23, paragraph 3:
III. The civil magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of the Word and sacraments, or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven: yet he hath authority, and it is his duty, to take order, that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire; that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed; all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed; and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed. For the better effecting whereof, he hath power to call synods, to be present at them, and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God.
The Westminster Confession of Faith, 1788, states in the same place:
3. Civil magistrates may not assume to themselves the administration of the Word and sacraments; or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven; or, in the least, interfere in the matter so faith. Yet, as nursing fathers, it is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the Church of our common Lord, without giving the preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest, in such a manner that all ecclesiastical persons whatever shall enjoy the full, free, and unquestioned liberty of discharging every part of their sacred functions, without violence or danger. And, as Jesus Christ hath appointed a regular government and discipline in his Church, no law of any commonwealth should interfere with, let, or hinder, the due exercise thereof, among the voluntary members of any denomination of Christians, according to their own profession and belief. It is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the person and good name of all their people, in such an effectual manner as that no person be suffered, either upon pretence of religion or of infidelity, to offer any indignity, violence, abuse, or injury to any other person whatsoever: and to take order, that all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies be held without molestation or disturbance.
Now if we think back to how the Standards came about in the first place, we should all realize that they are a result of something that our 1788 fathers obviously thought shouldn’t have happened. So maybe they should have just met to decide not to use them at all, instead of revise them. Food for thought.
Kazoo
EDIT 04/07/2008: I should note for those that don’t know me, I am a member in good standing at a PCA church. I love being Presbyterian, so take this post with that in mind.
The Reformed Standard 
It is important to note that the revised version acknowledges that it is the civil magistrate’s duty to “protect the Church of our common Lord, without giving the preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest,” and yet they removed the section in the Catechism that said one of the sins forbidden in the second commandment is toleration of a “false religion”.
Why didn’t the revised version say that it is the duty of the civil magistrate to protect all religions, rather than restricting the duty to only the Christian religion? Nowadays, I don’t think it is the opinion of most reformed folk that it is the duty of the civil magistrate to protect the Church of Christ at all unless it is also his duty to protect the Mosque. So for the anti-theonoms, the 1788 revision isn’t enough. This is why they make up their own revisions in their various readings of the confession.
I think the anti-theonoms make the same mistake here as the secularists (I know, big surprise), in that they fail to see this as toleration of all Protestant Christian religions, not Muhammadism or Buddhism, or witchcraft, or other forms of idolatry. The secularists make the same error with regard to the spirit in which religious freedom was granted by the First Amendment to the Constitution. They had various Christian denominations (religions) in mind because every state had an establishment of a denomination of the Christian religion. They were not speaking of pagan religions.
Further, Edwards, before the revision (I don’t know when exactly, but he died in 1758) classified hypocrites within the Church as practitioners of “false religion”, so the removal of the phrase from the LC could have been an effort to keep religious examinations of heresy and hypocrisy within the Christian Church in the hands of Church officers rather than allow for State tests of Christian orthodoxy and conduct.
Either way, the idea that the State should recognize and even defend devil worship is foreign to the scriptures and the Reformed confessions.
Kazoo,
I think you make a good point here. However, the Parliament that commissioned the Confession soon lost out in the end to the monarchy, and if the monarchists had their way, we’d all be Episcopalians. To have one man be the final judge of doctrine is not consistently presbyterian.
E
Ron,
Agreed that the idea that the state should recognize and defend devil worship is foreign to the Scriptures. In fact, I don’t think anyone should recognize it.
But what is also foreign to the Scriptures is the idea that the Church should have authority over the state, or vice versa.
E
Echo, should the State recognize and defend the Christian Church? If you say yes, but you do not believe they should recognize and defend devil worship (which is all false religion cf. 1 Corinthians 10:20-21), wherein lies the distinction? If you say no, then you are going against even the American revision of the WCF.
How else is the State to draw the line dividing “Christian denominations it will protect, and that individual states may establish” from “False religions that are subject to an O.T. ban?” What should the federal government do about theonomists who resisted the revision, because they wanted confessional support to persecute Catholics?
Rube, the State decides what Christian denominations to approve and does so. The constitution did not change this, it just relegated the responsibility to the States rather than US Congress. Neither did the Confession change this in 1788 for they still claimed it the responsibility of the State “to protect the Church of our common Lord”.
In context, my comment was referring to the individual status of Christians in the Church. It is the duty of Church officers to determine the status of their members, not State officers. And I only offered this as a possibility of what drove the change. Whatever it was, I don’t think it was out of a respect for and desire to protect devil worship.
Do you think it is the responsibility of the State “to protect the Church of our common Lord”? What about the Church of our common enemy the Devil (aka all false religion)? In your worldview, I don’t see how you can have one without the other. So you will have to either admit that if the State is going to protect Christian liberty, they have to protect satanic liberty as well, or say that it is not the job of the State to protect any religion.
Depends on what it means to “protect” a church. Seems to me that impartial protection of free assembly and private property would pretty much cover it.
Pushing from the federal down to the state level does not answer my question. How does the state draw the line(s) between “denomination we establish” vs. “denominations we tolerate as orthodox” (?) vs. “false religions we subect to the Mosaic sanctions for commandments 1-4”, without “allow[ing] for State tests of Christian orthodoxy”?
Echo,
No, I don’t think that the state institution should have “authority” over the church institution (Erastianism, right?) and I don’t think the church institution should have “authority” over the state institution (sure there’s a word here that starts with eccl…). They each have their own responsibilities and duties as ordained by God.
Rube,
Your question is a great question. It is one that I struggle with and need to know more about. I don’t even think the theonomy “rabbi’s” have answered this question to the full, but there is a lot I haven’t read yet, too. I believe that a great deal of care and concern has to be had here to answer this question (using the theonomic hermeneutic, of course) and we mustn’t forget history. The *burning* of heretics is not something that I personally endorse. Even Calvin pleaded with the city fathers to execute Servetus in a more humane way.
I will save this topic for another post, because I think it is worth exploring more deeply. However, I still think that the people who changed the confession made a mistake in their zeal for our new American ideals. It was too much of a reeling against a state enforced/endorsed “religion.” And as Ron points out, our individual states still declared their own religion (with some exceptions such as Rhode Island).
Echo, yes Parliament lost out to the monarchy, and that’s too bad. That is why a presbyterian government is so crucial to not only the church but the state. Tyranny is the work of the devil, and a plurality of representatives is what God gave humanity under his *common grace.* (Did you like that? It was specifically for you and Bruce) Jesus came to set men free, and that includes free from state tyranny as well as spiritual bondage. Oh God, set the peoples of the world free, including China and the Middle East.
Praising Him in All Things!
Kazoo
In other words, devil worship should be protected by the State. Where do you get this idea, Rube? Natural law? God’s Law certainly didn’t reveal this to you and it is foreign to the confession.
I see no other alternative but to spread the gospel by the sword. (There is no neutrality)
As the Church goes so does the Nation and her Magistrates…
If the Church is faithful in her prophetic role to the Magistrate, teaching true justice (as God defines it) and righteousness, this will do much to alleviate the state and her officials from the before mentioned err.
These problems originate with heresy in the church.
Lar
Rube, so you see no other alternative than for the state to protect devil worship. Interesting. What about when they faithfully want to sacrifice a human being to their god? What if this human being is an adult and willing and not crazy?
There are always alternatives, bud. The state can use the sword to *prevent* devil worship, but that doesn’t mean the state can or should use the sword to *compel* proper Christian worship.
kazoo
Penalizing murder is not the same as penalizing devil worship. And an “adult and willing and not crazy” victim does not make it any less murder than euthanasia.
And we object to “euthanasia” because of our **Christian** presuppositions. You are infringing upon the devil worshiper’s freedom of religion when they believe and want to practice that the devil demands a sacrifice. YOU are calling it murder, but they don’t see it that way. So YOU are infringing YOUR **religion** upon them and using the sword to stop them from **practicing** their **religion.**
And, even if they wanted to admit that their religion requires **murder,** who are you in your worldview that says all religions are equal, to then tell them they can’t practice their religion.
Pluralism is a myth. It doesn’t work. It’s irrational. It’s just the devil’s ploy to get the Christians to agree to a cease fire so that he can gain the strength to start persecuting the Christians again. Christ is reining now in Heaven AND on Earth and He wants to see ALL His enemies destroyed AS FAR AS THE CURSE IS FOUND.
Peace,
kazoo
You keep trying to wangle “religious” into every definition with some form of “there is no neutrality,” but I don’t buy it. There is religious, and there is not-religious, otherwise the biblical term “holy” has no meaning.
Lemme put it this way. Consider laws that penalize mobsters from going around murdering and stealing from people. It so happens that there are a significant number of Italians who are gangsters that actually believe that they are pursuing a valid and tradition-honored means of making a living (as practiced for hundreds of years in their homeland, continuing to the present day)! So when we penalize Italians for murder and theft, are those laws racist?
Your logic would say, “Yep, we have every right to impose Christian norms upon them and use the sword to stop them from practicing their Italian culture.”
But the correct answer is that such laws are not racist, because the constitution and laws are race-agnostic — they have no category for race; no definition of race is required to define the crimes and punishments. The laws don’t punish Italians, they punish murders and thieves. (Sorry to any Italian readers who might be offended, I am just using a stereotype to make a point, not asserting that it is accurate.)
Similarly, the civil magistrate can be religion-agnostic (I don’t want to argue the point here about whether the U.S. Constitution or WCF intend a religion-agnostic government). So the C.M. doesn’t combat devil worship with the sword (which would require religious categories to be defined in the law), he combats murder. And he doesn’t protect the Christian religion with the sword (which would also require religious categories); he protects free assembly and private property. Which establishes the peaceful conditions necessary to practice Christianity, and raise families, and conduct business, and yes, practice false religions.
You still have the problem that your “religion-agnostic” law against murder infringes upon a person’s religious practice. Your so-called “religion-agnostic” law comes from somewhere, and without scripture, special revelation, you are on equal ground with the devil-worshiper who will tell you that “general revelation” requires that humans be sacrificed. (After all, for the good of the population, we can’t OVER-populate, then ALL will starve, so general revelation says we should sacrifice some of the population).
That’s just one argument, but to get back to the point, you’ve boiled your “law” support down to “might makes right.” That’s what pluralism does. It eventually makes one view, religious or not, win out over others. You CANNOT have two completely opposing “views” live in harmony with each other. It’s impossible.
kazoo
I (personifying the religion-agnostic law) don’t see that as a problem, because the statement of the “problem” can’t even be formulated without the category “religious”. And I keep getting these petitions complaining that I am infringing upon peoples’ Italian practice? What is this “Italian” of which you speak? I’ve never heard of such a thing. I have no categories for these things. I guess I’m just blind.
(Get it? Just. Blind.)
And how is Theonomy going to change that? There will be disharmony between non-Christians and the Christian government that infringes upon their religious practices.
Also I want to note that the question “Can a religious-agnostic law be perfectly just in principle (given the right set of religious-agnostic laws)?” is separate from “Can man attain a perfectly just religious-agnostic government?” (which in turn is separate from “How?”).
The answer to question 2 is obviously No, but then again, so is the answer to the question “Can man attain a perfectly just religious government?”)
My answer to the first question is Yes. Your answer is No, because you view it to be unjust for “religious criminals” such as public blasphemers or door-to-door Mormons to remain alive. But if you remove 1st table concerns (which I know you don’t want to do) I don’t see why, in principle, a secular government could not perfectly just.
Is the death penalty provided for in The Law for violation of the 5th, 6th, and 7th commands just Rube? Aren’t those second table offenses?
To my recollection, I have never put forward any argument against 2nd Table Theonomy.
If it is helpful to the discussion, the point of my current post titled “Is the Law of God Only Binding on People in the Covenant?” Is to point out that non-theonomic and semi-theonomic (second table only) positions both conflict with the scripture, especially Psalm 2.
See: http://larrytemple.wordpress.com/2008/04/07/is-the-law-of-god-only-binding-on-people-in-the-covenant/#comments
Rube said:
Don’t you see my point here? Theonomy isn’t going to change that. Theonomy recognizes that you can never have neutrality, that someone’s religious beliefs are going to win out. I’m surprised that you finally admit it. See, because it pluralism is a logical impossibility, someone’s morals have to win out. As Larry points out, Psalm 2 declares that it should be God’s morals. His laws.
kazoo
No
Admit what? I still recognize that forbidding people from murdering is “nonreligious” — even if some of those people are devil worshippers.