Confessional Evangelicalism: A Change of Mind (Probably)

 The recent book, Four
Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism has been stirring up some interest
on the web.  While I have not yet had the
chance to read the whole thing, one aspect does strike me as of potentially
particular interest to the Ref21 constituency: R. Albert Mohler’s use of the
term `confessional evangelicalism.’

It is a term I have used myself, to try to argue for a
particular form of Christianity.  I am
also a member of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, though I think the
use of `confessing’ rather than `confessional’ is significant: we merely
confess certain truths together. 
Further, as my Alliance commitment stretches to little more than writing
for an online magazine (I have surely the worst attendance at council meetings
of anyone, specifically `zero’ in my six years), I think my hypocrisy, if
existent, is minimal.  

Anyway, to return to my use of confessional evangelicalism
in arguing for a particular form of Christianity, I use the term `Christianity’
here, rather than `evangelicalism’ because I am not persuaded that the latter
actually exists as anything other than a loose network of non-ecclesiastical
institutions (professional societies, seminaries, publishers etc.).  Thus, terms such as `liberal evangelicalism,’
`generic evangelicalism,’ `open evangelicalism,’ and `confessional
evangelicalism’ all run the risk of mistakenly assuming the real existence of a
sort of Platonic ideal of `evangelicalism’ in which they each participate.  In other words, they each imply a realist
view of evangelicalism; I am increasingly a nominalist in my approach.  Evangelicalism, at least as a doctrinal
movement as opposed to a network of institutions, does not possess any real
existence beyond the imaginations of those who have a vested interest in the
idea.

More recently, despite using the term `confessional
evangelical’ myself, and being a member of a parachurch group which uses a
similar term in its name, I have come to believe that there is an equivocation
in the use of the word `confessional’ here which needs to be clarified.  

For a church to be `confessional’ means for it to adhere to
a particular confession or set of confessional documents.  There are two parts to that statement, of
course: there is the material statement, in that there are confessional
documents involved, documents which teach certain doctrines; and there is the
point that the church `adheres’ to said documents, i.e., the church has a Form
of Government which connects to the confessional documents; as a result, office
bearers take vows to uphold certain doctrines as taught in the confessional
documents and there are procedures in place to remove them from office should
they fail to do so.  

Thus is it in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the
denomination to which I belong and in which I hold office.   To be confessional in this context means
that I believe and teach in accordance with the teaching of scripture as I see
it summarized in the Westminster Standards; that when I attend session meetings
I and my fellow elders are often citing the Standards in our discussions,
because they shape the very way we think and behave in an ecclesiastical
context; they are not just bits of paper or expressions of personal belief;
they express how we think and shape how we behave at the corporate level; and
if one of us falls out of step with the Standards, we will be dealt with
according to the procedures contained in the Form of Government and Book of
Discipline.

This is where I have become somewhat less enamoured of the
term `confessional evangelical.’  The
term `confessional’ is really an ecclesiastical category.  It usually means something only in an
ecclesiastical context.   To connect it
to evangelical is not unacceptable – as I noted at the start, I have done it
myself – but it is to use the term in a basically equivocal way.  When I use the term `confessional’ relative
to churches, I mean confessional documents connected to procedural canons; when
I use it to refer to `evangelicalism’ I clearly do not imply the second
point.   Indeed, for a church to be
`confessional,’ it has to discipline or expel office bearers who contradict the
confessional standards to which their vows bind them.   Not to do so would be to make the term
`confessional’ essentially meaningless. 
I could claim, after all, to be very much in favour of helping old ladies
across the road; but if it is my daily habit to push under a bus any old lady
unfortunate enough to cross my path, you might well question my commitment to
the safe transportation of the aged across the busy highway. 

In short, `confessional’, rather like `evangelical,’ is a
term which is only really relevant when it comes to particulars, in this case ecclesiastical
particulars.   It is helpful in the
current climate in that it seems to refer to those whose personal beliefs are
consonant with those of one or more of the great confessions of the sixteenth
or seventeenth centuries; but it is of very limited usefulness.  It is vulnerable to the same difficulties as
the term `evangelical’: when one abstracts it from the particulars of
ecclesiastical commitment, one actually shatters its doctrinal content because
that content is inextricably connected to both the doctrinal confession and the
ecclesiastical order of particular churches. 
Thus, to use the term `confessional’ for individual believers outside of
a specific church context where confessions are upheld by disciplinary procedures
is to use the term equivocally and, arguably, in an inappropriate manner.  One cannot be a `confessional evangelical’
unless one is in a confessional church; and then one is a confessional
Presbyterian, or Reformed, or Anglican or Baptist or Anabaptist.  One is not part of a broader self-conscious
movement called `confessional evangelicalism.’

A few weeks ago a friend asked if I would repudiate the
title `evangelical.’  My answer was
`Well, it depends on how it is being used.’ 
I will not typically describe myself as such in the American context
(back home in Blighty, the situation is somewhat different for cultural
reasons); but I have no objection to it being used as a descriptive term if the
person using the terms means such things as belief in justification by grace
through faith, penal substitutionary atonement etc.   Where it is problematic is when it is used
in a way that implies I am somehow part of a wider movement that includes, say,
open theists but excludes, say, conservative Dominican theologians.  My inclusion with the former and exclusion
from the latter would seem to me to be entirely arbitrary, given that, while I
have significant disagreements with both, I am arguable slightly closer to the
Dominicans than the radical Arminians. 
That is not to say that I look down on either group; it is simply to
make the observation that a confessional Presbyterian has some affinities with
both but does not really belong to either.

I did think that `confessional’ was a helpful way of
highlighting one stream of contemporary evangelicalism; now I am not so sure.   Confessions are particular, and I am
increasingly comfortable as seeing myself as part of three basic categories:
Christian, Protestant, Presbyterian. 
Within those categories I am happy to have fellowship with those who
disagree with me on many things; I am even happy to be involved in
co-belligerent parachurch groups which stress particular theological truths;
but I have no need of any hypothetical fourth category, however qualified, in
order to understand my location in the current religious scene.