Zwischen den Zeiten: D G Hart on the OPC and dialectical identities

Reflections on Between
the Times: the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Transition, 1945-1990
(Willow Grove: OPC)

This year marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the
founding of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.  To mark the occasion, well-known scholarly historian,
Reformed pundit and OPC elder, D G Hart, has written a history of the years
1945 to 1990.  Love him or hate him,
everything Hart publishes is always provocative and well-written.  The book is worth reading both for insights
into the specific history of the OPC and for the lens it provides for seeing
wider developments in conservative American Protestantism from the perspective
of confessional Presbyterianism.

A couple of preliminary remarks are in order.  First, it may seem flippant to note this but
the book is attractively produced, marking a definite improvement on the usually
dull and occasionally scary aesthetics of earlier OPC publications which appear
to have been designed as a direct means of proving that people do not buy books
because of their covers.

Second, the book is not a straightforward narrative
history.  Rather, Hart takes a series of
themes and traces each one separately throughout the specified period.  Thus, we learn about the rationale
surrounding the production of a hymn book, struggles for identity within the
broader conservative Presbyterian context, ecumenical relations, debates over
social engagement, and relations with Westminster Theological Seminary.  Hart has done a remarkable amount of
meticulous research but the book is not only detailed: it is also full of
provocative analysis.

For those familiar with Hart’s other work, some standard
themes emerge: the careful distinction between confessional Presbyterianism and
liberalism on the one side, evangelicalism on the other; the emphasis on
ecclesiology as a crucial factor in the career of J. Gresham Machen; and a
suspicion of anything which might smack of revivalism or, to use the old
fashioned word, `enthusiasm.’  Those who
know where Hart is coming from can spot the points at which he strains to be
dispassionate but on the whole he manages not to allow his personal commitments
in these areas greatly to distort his narrative.

Key to the OPC is J. Gresham Machen.  Now appropriated by broader evangelicalism as
a champion of orthodoxy, Hart shows how Machen in his own day was first and
foremost a churchman.  Within the OPC,
according to Hart, this notion – that churchmanship is the primary locus of
Christian identity — has been subject to challenge throughout its
history.  Indeed, one of the ironies of
Hart’s narrative is the fact that the OPC, as a small church born out of
conflict and countless stories of personal sacrifice, was from the start a
church with several strong identities; much of her subsequent history can thus be
seen as involving struggles over precisely which would triumph.  Hart also points out that the OPC, despite
her reputation for exclusivity, has twice voted to put herself out of existence.  The first time, in 1981, she voted to join
the PCA who then rejected her approach. 
This was on the grounds that the PCA was worried that the OPC might be
deviant on justification thanks to the influence of controversial Westminster
professor, Norman Shepherd.  The second
time, in 1986, the majority was again for union but failed to achieve the
necessary two-thirds vote.   Anyone who
thinks the OPC is not ecumenically minded might want to reflect on how often
their own denomination has voted to disband.

Throughout the book there are fascinating vignettes of
influential OPC figures, from Machen himself, to the early Westminster faculty,
to later figures such as Harvie Conn and Richard Gaffin.   Westminster Theological Seminary is a
constant theme but Hart also devotes a whole chapter to her.   His narrative is his familiar one of the
broadening of Westminster to accommodate less generically high Presbyterian
constituencies.  One or two Westminster
friends have told me they thought him a little unfair here; as an outsider to
the culture of Westminster, I was not offended by anything he said in this
context.  The chapters on Christian
education and the production of the Trinity hymnal were admittedly not the ones
I thought would be most inspiring – and they did not disappoint on that score –
but they do serve to show the care and thought that must be used in such
contexts.

The book is timely in one more way.  It will help those who are committed to
seeing the future of the church in terms of parachurch, big tent evangelical
organizations to understand why some of us are less than enamoured of such
ambitions.   Much of Hart’s narrative
highlights the dialectical tension within the OPC between those who wished to
maintain a high Presbyterianism and those who saw connection with the broader
evangelical movement as the key to the future.  
This is particularly clear in the reported epistolary exchange between
Richard Gaffin and John Frame in the denomination’s magazine, New Horizons in 1989.  Frame was pushing for a more generic
evangelical identity, Gaffin wanted to stress the distinctive ecclesial
particularity of normative Biblical Christian life.  Hart is worth quoting at this point:

The characteristic of Orthodox
Presbyterianism was the Reformed doctrine of the church in which membership in
a particular communion was not a supplement to Christian identity but its
embodiment.  As Gaffin explained in his
exchange, the OPC was not merely a denomination; “it is a church, a church that exists by divine warrant.”  As such, he added, “Biblical Presbyterianism
has no place for loyalties torn between the denomination and the local
congregation, or for greater loyalty to either one.” (p. 317)

In today’s US conservative evangelical world, this is a
stunning statement and repays careful reflection.  The numbers of leading men who are involved
in church-like parachurch organizations are significant; the organizations
themselves are often impressive; and they arguably do much good when they are
kept firmly in their place as hobbies and not primary contexts for Christian identity
or action.  But if and when church
identity is supplanted by parachurch identity, all manner of problems
ensue.  Theology becomes truncated and,
ultimately therefore, the gospel becomes vague.  Accountability structures are nebulous and
tend to come down to behind-closed-doors discussions among elite self-selected
councils, many of which have high proportions of the same people serving on
them.  Divided loyalties facilitate
silence on key issues and the emasculation of truly prophetic voices.  The theological trend in such groups seems
ever downward even as the amount of practical power and influence wielded by
the functionally unaccountable seems always to be growing as they master the
new media, plant churches by Skype and promote their causes with ruthless
aplomb.   And the silence about the grim
effects of this is too often deafening as the co-opted find that too many of
their own vested interests collide with the need for plain speaking.  Hart’s story shows that the OPC may have
sacrificed a place at the beer tables and the winebars where the Beautiful
Young Things gather, but the result has been gain rather than loss in those
areas which really matter.

I am not one of those who are uncritical of Darryl Hart;
indeed, within the OPC herself, our shared denomination, I would probably not
be counted as an ally of his causes. Yet I am deeply grateful for this book,
not only for its clarity and the insights it has given me into my own chosen
spiritual home but also for the way it brings into sharp relief much of the
sub-par phenomena out there which claim the titles of Reformed and
confessional.  The OPC is small, cranky
and has her many faults; and, honestly, I for one would not be anywhere else at
this juncture in American conservative Protestant history.