On Statements of Faith (Pastors Talk, Ep. 250)
Do you know what a statement of faith is? Find out on this episode of Pastors Talk, as Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman explain the history of statements of faith in the church and the purpose they serve in the modern church. They address what should be included in a statement of faith and how to approach situations where others do not agree with the statement of faith that has been established for your church.
- What is a Statement of Faith?
- Church History on Statements of Faith
- The Purpose Behind a Statement of Faith
- Disagreeing with a Statement of Faith
- What Should be Included in a Statement of Faith?
Related Resources:
Books: How to Build A Healthy Church, Baptist Foundations
Journal: Confessions, Covenants, and Constitutions: How to Organize Your Church
Articles: Are brief, general statements of faith harmful or helpful?, Adopting and Choosing a Statement of Faith, Without Exception: How to Handle Exceptions to the Statement of Faith, Which Church Documents? And Why?, How should you deal with a bad statement of faith, church covenant, or church constitution that you inherit in a new pastorate?
Video: 9Marks at Southeastern 2014 – Membership by Mark Dever
Transcript
The following is a lightly edited transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Jonathan Leeman:
This is Jonathan Leeman.
Mark Dever:
This is Mark Dever.
Jonathan Leeman:
Welcome to this episode of 9Marks Pastors Talk.
Mark Dever:
And what an episode it is.
Jonathan Leeman:
It will be. Last week we talked about church covenants.
Mark Dever:
What about all the stuff you normally say at this point?
Jonathan Leeman:
Oh man, you distracted me. You’re right. Ah, let me go back. 9Marks exists to help pastors build healthy churches and learn more at 9Marks.org.
Mark Dever:
So what we’re going to talk about now is modern-day Nicaea. It’s Chalcedon Part 14. I mean, what we’re talking about today is more important. Hey, hey, hey, put that coffee down. Listen to us. This is more important than the normal Pastors Talk. We are talking about things that PhD students of Lord Tarry 75 years from now will be listening to put a footnote in their dissertation on how this statement of faith got to be written because Jonathan Leeman is about to rewrite Christianity.
Jonathan Leeman:
Oh my goodness, so false.
Mark Dever:
I think it’s true.
Jonathan Leeman:
So hyperbolic.
Mark Dever:
Yes, it is.
Jonathan Leeman:
So misleading.
Mark Dever:
And I don’t think so. We in our statements of faith summarize what we think Christianity says.
What is a Statement of Faith?
Jonathan Leeman:
Mark, what’s a statement of faith?
Mark Dever:
It’s a summary of what we think Christianity says. And you want to write an entirely new one.
Jonathan Leeman:
I want to…
Mark Dever:
You’re not wanting to revise the New Hampshire confession. You want to write an entirely new one. So I think what I have represented is exactly accurate. I rest my case, your honor Jaquez.
Jonathan Leeman:
I am wanting to.
Mark Dever:
Hey, what do you know? What do you know?
Jonathan Leeman:
You stuck that in there.
Mark Dever:
Go ahead.
Jonathan Leeman:
We’ll come back to what I am or am not doing.
Mark Dever:
You’re doing exactly what I just said because you told me beforehand.
Jonathan Leeman:
No, it’s true. What I want to do is to initiate a process for a number of folks, including you, because I recall a text message.
Mark Dever:
Initiate a process.
Jonathan Leeman:
In which I said, Mark, I want to involve a number of guys.
Mark Dever:
In writing a new statement of faith.
Jonathan Leeman:
I can involve you. Do you want to be involved?
Mark Dever:
Yes.
Jonathan Leeman:
And you said?
Mark Dever:
Sure.
Jonathan Leeman:
OK, so you’re in this with me.
Mark Dever:
I am.
Jonathan Leeman:
So you can’t just push me under the bus.
Mark Dever:
But specifically, it’s not pushing you under the bus, brother, I’m thankful for it. You specifically said you want to write the whole thing yourself.
Jonathan Leeman:
I want to write a first draft.
Mark Dever:
Well, which is writing the whole thing.
Jonathan Leeman:
I want to get the ball rolling.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, you’re happy for people like me to come in and edit.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah, well, or rewrite or take things out or say, we got to add this. No, that’s right.
Mark Dever:
Didn’t we just do an episode on Church Covenant?
Jonathan Leeman:
Time out.
Mark Dever:
Didn’t we just do an episode on Church Covenant?
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah, and we’re trying to do a statement of faith.
Mark Dever:
So let’s just go. What’s the difference?
Church History on Statements of Faith
Jonathan Leeman:
Let’s hold on. Why would you want to be involved, Mr. Historian? I like to take things, you know, as they are. Why would you even want to be involved in this? Why do you think this is a worthwhile enterprise?
Mark Dever:
Because like you, I have since the 1970s, and you maybe since the 1990s, have sensed that we are in an age of pressing new self-expressivism, which dominates and tyrannizes the intellectual self-understandings that we have.
Jonathan Leeman:
We are in a post-Christian moment. We are post-Christendom and many of the statements of faith that we have received wonderfully from Westminster to 1689 to New Hampshire were written in a very different context responding to the Roman Catholic Church.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah, and you can see the addition of the Baptist faith and message from 25 to 2000.
Mark Dever:
Yeah.
Mark Dever:
I just want to address these things.
Jonathan Leeman:
That’s exactly right. Anyway, so it may go nowhere. We –
Mark Dever:
I think it will. There’s such a need for it.
Jonathan Leeman:
We may not come up with something that’s usable, but let’s give it a go.
Mark Dever:
But hey, yo, yo, a graduate student at Southern Seminary in 2083.
Jonathan Leeman:
Because they will be listening to this…
Mark Dever:
It is Jonathan Leeman who is behind this. Mark Dever has assisted, but this is basically Jonathan’s kitten caboodle.
What is a Statment of Faith’s Role in the Local Church?
Jonathan Leeman:
We’ll see. We’ll see. What is the role of a statement of faith in a local church?
Mark Dever:
So if you want to understand more about his thoughts, find his book called Don’t Fire Your Church Member, his book called Authority, and his book called One Assembly, and you’ll begin to understand what was going on with this guy.
Jonathan Leeman:
What’s the role of a statement of faith in a church life?
Mark Dever:
Summarizes what we believe is of first importance. So if you go to Paul, when he’s writing to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 15, he begins that chapter saying, “for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures”.
Jonathan Leeman:
So you’re saying they’re in the Bible, statements of faith are in the Bible.
Mark Dever:
I don’t know if statements of faith are in the Bible, but yes, the summaries of the message that we believe and hold dear are in scripture.
Jonathan Leeman:
A couple of other passages, Galatians 1.
Mark Dever:
Yep, Philippians 2.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, I think there are a number of places you see things like this.
Jonathan Leeman:
“Even if we are an angel from heaven, we should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you”. So there’s some sense of what that gospel is, right? Yeah. I think that’s clear whether they wrote that down or not.
Somehow they had a very clear sense of it, which I think is worth observing. Another text that occurs to me is 1 John 4, “Do not believe every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they’ve gone out from any false prophets have gone out.
By this, you know the spirit. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus has come in the flesh is from God and every spirit that has not confessed Jesus is not from God”. So he’s expecting his readers to have a locked-in view of the incarnation.
How Long Have Churches Been Using Statements of Faith?
Again, whether they wrote that down or not. How long have churches been using statements of faith?
Mark Dever:
Well, churches have been using statements of faith for as long as there have been churches. I mean, if we go to 1 Corinthians 15, or if we think of 325, Nicaea; 381, Constantinople; revision of Nicaea; 451, Chalcedon; various statements that were come out by various synods, groups of pastors in the Middle Ages and then certainly with the Reformation, you have an explosion of statements in German city-states, in France, Poland, Hungary.
Jonathan Leeman:
Does Luther’s recovery of the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers and clarification of that seem to spur on that explosion of statements of…
Mark Dever:
Yeah, so does the recovery of the role of the vernacular. So things need to be expressed differently. And that also regionalizes the statements. Yeah. So, you know, you get everything from Augsburg at 1530 to Cranmer’s initially 42 articles in 1548, 49.
And they’re all saying roughly the same thing. They’re maintaining justification by faith very clearly and they are making it clear that the scriptures stand over any human authority, including the Bishop of Rome, what would have been in their minds.
Jonathan Leeman:
Right. And on that point, I think I’m the growing emphasis on the vernacular enables people to both read their Bibles and articulate in their own language the doctrines they adhere to. And I think that the priest of all believers impels that sense of responsibility for what our church believes.
Mark Dever:
Yeah. So just like when somebody is going to come to investigate our church and say, Hey, is this a community I should as a Christian be involved in? We have a new members class they go through and there’s one whole session on the church covenant. That is our agenda. What we mean to do.
Jonathan Leeman:
Six classes. That’s one.
Mark Dever:
Yeah. We also have one on our credenda, what we believe is our statement of faith. And I always tell people, this is the most important thing about a church, what it believes.
So this is, what you really want to focus on here because this is the message that we’re telling you that makes the difference for you eternally between heaven and hell. So you really want to listen carefully to this.
Jonathan Leeman:
And your version of teaching that class is you read the statement and then you just see if there are any questions. You actually don’t do commentary?
Mark Dever:
Uh, well, I mean I do in so far as the people in the room might not understand something or I can just tell by the way they’re saying something in the conversation we’re having. I’ve always asked at the beginning of that class, the religious background that people have.
So I know what’s going to go around the room. There’s this person with a Hindu background is first Mormon background is this person atheist background. This person Southern Baptist background.
Jonathan Leeman:
And that helps you because?
Mark Dever:
Well, if I see we’ve got five Roman Catholics, or former Roman Catholics in the class, then I’m gonna be very clear on some of those matters. Whereas if there’s none of those, and everybody has a Presbyterian or Baptist background, I’ll probably just focus on some other things.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah, that’s very helpful.
How Does Writing a Statement of Faith Differ from Writing a Book?
Mark Dever:
So Jonathan, do you feel an unusually heavy sense of responsibility in undertaking this? How does it feel different than writing a book?
Jonathan Leeman:
It does feel different. I don’t feel it yet because I’m not yet convinced that it’s going to amount to anything.
Mark Dever:
I think it will.
Jonathan Leeman:
I am being very, you know, yesterday I went for a 15-minute walk and just asked the Lord’s assistance as I think through different things. And I hope it becomes a helpful pastoral tool. That’s what’s animating me. I want Christians and non-Christians alike to be able to walk through the door and find this document that speaks theology.
Mark Dever:
And understand it.
Jonathan Leeman:
And understand it, but helps them where they’re living right now. So a doctrine of justification, for instance, that’s not just responding to Rome, but that’s responding to self-discovery, self-affirmation, self-worth, right? Because that’s what’s justifying me now. It’s lies about wellness.
Mark Dever:
Rome’s lies continue.
Jonathan Leeman:
They do continue. So it’s got to kind of capture both, I think, in some ways. And so I want it to be a pastoral tool that really encourages and equips the saints for works of…
How Long Should a Statement of Faith be?
Mark Dever:
Do you go for more of the 1689 length or more of the New Hampshire Confession length?
Jonathan Leeman:
I haven’t totally worked that out in my head yet. We’ll see what it takes as I go. I want to be shorter, I’m gonna aspire to be shorter. Like even the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, which is a good document in many ways. But I feel like it’s a little too long.
Mark Dever:
It’s too long. For a church, it’s too long.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay, well that brings me to my next question. How long should they be?
Mark Dever:
New Hampshire Confession, 18 articles.
Jonathan Leeman:
Why that?
Mark Dever:
Because that’s what J. Newton Brown did and it’s worked really well.
Jonathan Leeman:
Come on, give me some more. Because I can go to some.
Mark Dever:
The brief is good. Now, you know, you see on some church websites, they’ve got six articles, seven articles. I don’t think you could do a sufficiently good job in six or seven articles, but feel free and try.
But I think the contrast of the New Hampshire at 18 articles, and an article is just really a long sentence, over against the beauty and wonderful teaching of 1689, which is the Westminster Confession. I think the Westminster was written for bishops. I mean, it was not written for… It was not written for congregational polity with every member, supposed to have subscribed to it.
So by the time, it became Savoy with the Congregationalists and then 1689, 1677, then 1689 with the Baptists and again over here with the Philadelphia and Charleston publications, that document was not initially written conceiving of how I would understand a New Testament church works. It was really merely a teaching document that would be affirmed by the bishops and the clergy.
And I think it shows by its length and detail. So I think J. Newton Brown and the New Hampshire Convention in the 1850s served us well in coming up with a much, much shorter definition of many things that were, they deemed sufficient to be used in our churches to ask for the assent of not just the pastors, but also all the members. I think that’s a good goal for you to have as well.
The Purpose Behind a Statement of Faith
Jonathan Leeman:
Your answer, they should be shorter rather than longer presumes a certain purpose for accomplishing the purpose of the church. What is that purpose?
Mark Dever:
To understand, to affirm.
Jonathan Leeman:
To understand, to affirm. Anything else in the purpose of your statement of faith?
Mark Dever:
Therefore, therefore teach and guard. But it’s fundamentally understood and affirmed.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah.
Mark Dever:
Who’s been your main conversation partner in this project?
Jonathan Leeman:
I’ve been talking to… In terms of what should be involved in it?
Mark Dever:
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
Guys in our circles, Bobby.
Mark Dever:
Bobby Jamieson.
Jonathan Leeman:
Others, Ben Lacy.
Mark Dever:
Ben Lacy was a pastor in Fort Worth, Texas.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah, you.
Mark Dever:
In the middle of the 21st century.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah. Okay, well, you raise an interesting point, shorter for the whole church, maybe longer for the bishops. So what are your thoughts on kind of two statements of faith, a shorter one for the church, and a longer one for the pastors?
Mark Dever:
No, no, no, the bishops can read your books, man.
Jonathan Leeman:
Why not a long, it’s pretty common to do that.
Mark Dever:
I don’t know. It’s common. It’s sometimes done. I think it undermines congregationalism. I just would not…
Jonathan Leeman:
Explain.
Mark Dever:
Because I think any group of 35 people who’s a church is going to have variable levels of maturity. That’s why a guy can be an elder at one church and not another. I think we catch them in the neck, as it were when we have a long-written requirement, Second London, that everybody’s going to be an elder and any church anywhere must affirm.
And the laymen don’t need to understand as well, so they just have to do this thing. I think it’s far better to say everybody has the same thing, the New Hampshire confession or something like that. So when you like your writing and then say, but the more mature comparatively, not by an absolute standard, the more mature among us will be who the elders will come from.
So they may not be of a level that would be able to understand and affirm in good conscience, everything in a longer, fuller document, but then maybe the best that we have. So I think that’s a much more honest and realistic thing to do. I think that requiring the subscription to something the brother honestly does not understand is a way just to push you then to start having a less strict subscription, which is a way to begin undermining the whole thing.
Disagreeing with a Statement of Faith
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, let’s go there right now, subscription. What’s the nature of the church members’ agreement? Can they be unsure, unsettled, or settled against any article of it? If so, which ones?
Mark Dever:
Yeah, I think that’s where you have pastors of the church to listen and carefully try to give judgment on those things. I don’t think you can have a settled conviction against any of them. I think as a new Christian, there might be some of them that you’re happy to be taught that you don’t fully understand, but yeah, you’re fine with that.
But you can just admit where you’re, it’s not clear to you, but it makes sense and you’re happy to go that way. But if you’re talking to somebody about membership and they say, yeah, that first article right here about scripture, I really, I don’t believe that. Well, then I don’t think they could be a member.
Jonathan Leeman:
So if somebody says, I believe in annihilationism… You would say, I’m sorry, I misspoke. I believe in annihilationism, which would contradict the statement of faith.
Mark Dever:
Okay. So that’s in the statement of faith.
Jonathan Leeman:
You can’t join the church.
Mark Dever:
Correct. And I’ve had somebody who was a member of the church begin to dabble with annihilationism. As I became aware of that, I then began talking with them about that, engaging them about that, pointing them to scriptures and Christian sermons, and trying to help them think better about it.
Jonathan Leeman:
We use the language of theological triage, first order, second order, first order gospel issues, and second order, those things that bind us as a church together and protect the gospel. I think it’s pretty easy for folks to say, hey, yeah, we have to agree on first-tier stuff, gospel, justification, Jesus, Trinity, Bible.
Mark Dever:
But there’s more than that in any statement of faith that you or I would use because we also have the stuff that distinguishes us from being a Presbyterian church.
Jonathan Leeman:
That’s why I asked. Okay, so back on the question of subscription. Yes, Mark, I’ve been baptized as a believer, but I’m not really sure I’m convinced that one must. How do you respond? Can I take an exception, they would say?
Mark Dever:
Yeah, I would say no. I would say your own decision to be baptized reflects…
Jonathan Leeman:
What you think scripture teaches.
Mark Dever:
Yeah. All we’re doing is putting that in writing.
Jonathan Leeman:
Because of your emphasis on priests of all believers and therefore congregationalism and therefore the whole congregation’s call to protect ourselves as a gospel-believing church, you are asking the…
Mark Dever:
that Paul can obviously trade on in Galatians 1 with the assumption that they have a grasp on an Orthodox understanding of the gospel and can act on that grasp.
Should You Leave a Church if You Disagree With Their Statement of Faith?
Jonathan Leeman:
How often have you had a member come to you and say, so this is a person who has affirmed the statement of faith, but now their views are beginning to evolve maybe on baptism, maybe on hell, maybe on something else? Let’s say it’s not a first-tier issue though, necessarily. Do you encourage them to join another church?
Mark Dever:
You just had a few different things. If they are devolving from the Bible’s teaching on anything that’s in our statement of faith that will jeopardize their, at least their membership here and perhaps the credibility of their professional conversion.
Jonathan Leeman:
On some issues, paedobaptism.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, that would, unless they’re suggesting that it’s salvific, which is what most people who practice paedobaptism would have thought. But if you just mean they just think it’s a sign of salvation by faith alone, but it could rightly be administered or maybe it should be administered to children of believers.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yes, that.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, then that’s, why you can’t be a member of our church, but that does not make me worry for your Christian faith.
Jonathan Leeman:
I had a brother who became a convicted paedobaptist with a reformed understanding of it a few years ago.
Mark Dever:
Yeah. I’ve obviously known many people who have.
Jonathan Leeman:
And he handled it maturely and well, came to the elders. I think he came to the elders also before he was convinced, gratefully, which I would also commend. Just say, hey, brothers, I’m thinking…
Mark Dever:
So you can have that conversation.
Jonathan Leeman:
Exactly. A little bit worse when they show up already settled in their mind. I prefer you to come while you’re here and give us a chance to think through it with you. But then eventually said, yeah, I need to, I’ve resolved. I need to leave and join another church and we are able to encourage him and bless him as it were.
What Should be Included in a Statement of Faith?
Mark Dever:
So you want to write a Baptist confession of faith.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yes. Congregational Baptist.
Mark Dever:
Will you explicitly talk about the plurality of elders in it?
Jonathan Leeman:
That’s one of the questions that’s open in my mind.
Mark Dever:
Will you talk about a church being one assembly?
Jonathan Leeman:
Yes.
Mark Dever:
So a church assembling.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yes.
Mark Dever:
And that assembly is not annually or monthly but weekly.
Jonathan Leeman:
There’s be… Okay, background problems we have right now? Internet church.
Mark Dever:
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, I think it’s worth affirming, Christians must gather in a church that’s constituted by the gathering.
Mark Dever:
I agree.
Jonathan Leeman:
They didn’t have to deal with that in 1689 or…
Mark Dever:
Yeah, that’s right.
Jonathan Leeman:
1640s or whatever. Okay.
Mark Dever:
So will you call it the modern confession?
Jonathan Leeman:
I’m gonna come to you for branding and titling, so you should be thinking about that.
Mark Dever:
Okay, I’ll get on.
Jonathan Leeman:
Should a church have an explicitly Calvinistic statement of faith?
Mark Dever:
Yes. I wouldn’t use brand names like Reformed or Calvinistic, but should a church be clear that Jonah 2:9 is the Lord who saves, yes.
Jonathan Leeman:
While also affirming repentance and belief, obviously.
Mark Dever:
Of course.
Jonathan Leeman:
Explicitly complementarian?
Mark Dever:
Yes. Again, that’s one of the pressing issues of the day. Gender is under attack.
Jonathan Leeman:
Because you didn’t think that in the 90s. You could correct me if I’m wrong.
Mark Dever:
No, that’s right. In the 1980s, I helped start a church in New England. And we avoided that issue because it was divisive and looking back, I regret that.
Jonathan Leeman:
I feel like I remember you teaching Capitol Hill Baptist in the 90s or early 2000s saying, we’re not going to divide over that. We’re happy for, I don’t know if you said happy for, we’re willing for an egalitarian to come in and be taught so long as they’re not going to teach against the elders. But you wouldn’t say that now.
Mark Dever:
I don’t think so.
Jonathan Leeman:
Because times have changed.
Mark Dever:
Yeah. I had this conversation with Scott Sunquist not long ago. Scott said, dear brother, who’s the president of Gordon Conwell. He’s a convinced egalitarian. He and I were Gordon Conwell’s students at the same time in the 1980s and Scott was an evangelist, and godly brother, who worked at UVA now he’s had a career in East Asia and the Lord has used him as a missionary and missionary statesman and now he’s presiding over Gordon Conwell and that’s important stewardship.
But I was explaining to him my concern with the kind of egalitarianism that he and I had been taught and that I first accepted and then came to reject while I was at Gordon Conwell. And I said, I think that today, that same egalitarianism is often part of, even if it’s an unwilling part of, on some people’s part, but it is part of a larger anti-gender conversation that I don’t feel as a Bible-leading, complementarian Christian, I can leave hostages to fortune and not instruct more clearly every member of our church in. In a way, in the 1980s, I wasn’t as worried about that.
Jonathan Leeman:
A burden I’m feeling at this moment is in this post-Christendom moment, increasingly ethical issues are dividing Christians. So it’s not just quote-unquote beliefs, it’s ethics as well. And there’s…
Mark Dever:
And anthropology.
Jonathan Leeman:
That’s right. And so part of what’s been motivating me in this conversation is I remember being at Capitol Hill with elders and we were trying to figure out what to do with homosexuality and same-sex marriage as that was kind of coming across our radar screens in the early 2000s and then certainly by Obergefell and thinking, okay, shall we use the Baptist Faith and Message which addresses that or is the New Hampshire doesn’t? How shall we use the Baptist faith and message? So all these ethical questions.
Mark Dever:
Well, divorce and abortion have been front and center for…
Should Churches Have Anthropological Statements?
Jonathan Leeman:
Exactly. So here’s my question. Should a church have statements regarding, let me give you several just to see where I’m going, abortion, homosexuality, transgender issues, racism, what do you think?
Mark Dever:
Yes. You should at least have some clear, positive teaching.
Jonathan Leeman:
Anthropological statements.
Mark Dever:
Yeah. In the statement of faith that you, it’s clearly understood what they imply.
Jonathan Leeman:
God created us, man and woman.
Mark Dever:
Now how explicitly do you need to detail the errors, you have to be careful with that because the form of the errors will change. It’s so funny that the form of the errors always seems permanent. Like, oh, now finally we’ve gotten to what everyone was really talking about. No, it’s protein.
It will change. So it’s better if you state the truth really clearly. Yes, as you’ve said in the forward, you let me read what you’ve come up with for the statement, deploying it in a particular language, being aware of particular challenges, but it’s wise for you to, I think, be clearer on the positive than to lay out particular, you know, not the Socinian, not the, you know, not, not the ones, not have a list of things that it’s not that are just current right now.
Getting Practical
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah, right, right. Back to ethics and first tier versus second tier. Trying to get practical now. Somebody leaves your church, Mark, and goes to a church that denies first-tier issues, sole fide. Your church’s response is to what? Series of conversations, pleading with a guy.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, are they a member of our church?
Jonathan Leeman:
Member of your church, joining another church that denies…
Mark Dever:
We have to excommunicate them.
Jonathan Leeman:
First-tier issues. Okay, second-tier issues, going to join a Presbyterian church.
Mark Dever:
Oh, God bless you. Let us know if you ever want to come back. Love you. Let us know how we can help.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay, now let’s go to ethics. An affirming church, affirming LGBT.
Mark Dever:
Yeah. I think that’s going to be more like the first order because it implicitly strikes at the authority of scripture and even what Paul in 1 Corinthians 6 seems to assume are the characteristics of those who will inherit the kingdom of heaven versus the characteristics of those who will not. So I think 1 Corinthians 6, eschatologically, not just creationally Romans 1, but eschatologically 1 Corinthians 6, leaves us in a difficult position to say this is a church that is a safe guide for sinners into eternity.
Jonathan Leeman:
If the gospel call and gospel demands include repentance, it’s a denial of repentance.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, that’s right. Exactly.
Jonathan Leeman:
And you can’t deny the necessity of repentance. And so in that sense, it has become a first-tier issue. I think that’s right. What was really helpful to me on that conversation, Mark, do you recall when we as elders at CHBC spent a meeting or two working through that?
How do we respond in principle to somebody leaving our church to join an affirming church? And coming to a common mind on that was, several memos written, was very helpful to me. Okay, last one. This is a little bit of a curve ball. A brother asked me, I got a phone call two or three weeks ago.
Mark Dever:
Because you are known as confession rewriting central.
Jonathan Leeman:
Not known that at all until this conversation got out, which I’m still not in denial of, called me and said,
Mark Dever:
Denial is more than a river in Egypt.
Jonathan Leeman:
I just probably should close this down, huh, Alberto? A person’s leaving our church and joining an Episcopal church. This particular Episcopal church is egalitarian but evangelical and affirming. The bishop under which this Episcopal church belongs is affirming. What do we do?
Mark Dever:
I think you excommunicate.
Jonathan Leeman:
I said the opposite. I said, treat them according to our…
Mark Dever:
Your statement of faith is going to be liberal and our church won’t change to use it.
Jonathan Leeman:
I said, treat them according to our theology, not theirs. Their church is a church, whether or not they have this bishopric over them or not.
Mark Dever:
I wasn’t responding to the bishop. I was responding to the church that you said was evangelical but affirming.
Jonathan Leeman:
No, I didn’t say that.
Mark Dever:
That’s exactly what you said.
Jonathan Leeman:
Did I?
Mark Dever:
Yes, Ryan Curia is nodding his head. That’s what you said.
Jonathan Leeman:
I would agree with you in that case. What I meant to say was egalitarian and evangelical.
Mark Dever:
Oh, no, we would certainly allow that.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay.
Mark Dever:
Oh, yeah, of course.
Jonathan Leeman:
But the bishop was affirming.
Mark Dever:
I’m with you there. I said no, that’s not…
Jonathan Leeman:
Treat them according to your theology, not their theology.
Mark Dever:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah. Any final comments on this? That was my little case study there for you.
Mark Dever:
Okay. Well, Jonathan, you know, all joking aside… No, let’s say it’s fine to not joke sometimes. They get so impatient.
Jonathan Leeman:
They do.
Mark Dever:
All, joking aside, I think what you’re doing is important work. I think it needs to be done. We talked about it as pastors for 20 years.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah.
Mark Dever:
Something like this needs to be undertaken. And I think you’re the right guy to do it. So I really appreciate you taking this on and I pray the Lord will bless you.
Jonathan Leeman:
I’m just initiating it.
Mark Dever:
With wisdom. Yeah. Well, it’s not that long a task. I mean, you shouldn’t, you should not have to spend five years on this.
Jonathan Leeman:
No, but it may take me a few weeks.
Mark Dever:
Oh, it may take you a year or two to get in final form.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah. Well, I mean, the first draft is going to take me some time.
Mark Dever:
But, uh, if you’re listening right now if you will send in three tops of cereal boxes of your favorite cereal, Jonathan will send you his current state of work on this.
Jonathan Leeman:
That’s not true. You’re making stuff up now.
Mark Dever:
So you just have to pick your three favorite bowls of cereal, and box tops from your three favorite bowls of cereal, and send them in to 525 A Street, Northeast Washington, DC, 20002.
Jonathan Leeman:
What cereal did you eat this morning?
Mark Dever:
Hold on, hold on. Attention, Alberto Jaquez.
Jonathan Leeman:
Apple Jacks.
Mark Dever:
And Alberto will get them to Jonathan.
Jonathan Leeman:
Lucky Charms.
Mark Dever:
And get you a copy of the Statement of Faith and its current form of revision.
Jonathan Leeman:
Somebody had some sugar. Can I get an amen?
Mark Dever:
Amen.
Jonathan Leeman:
Thanks for your time, brother.
Mark Dever:
Thank you, Jonathan.
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Pastors Talk
A weekly conversation between Jonathan Leeman and Mark Dever about practical aspects of the Christian life and pastoral ministry.
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