Book Review: The Book of Church Order, by the OPC

Click here for a review of The Book of Church Order, by the PCA.

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In 1929, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Churches in the United States (PCUSA) met in St. Paul, Minnesota. A key concern during this annual meeting was the denomination’s flagship seminary, Princeton, and its alleged theological drift.

Six reports concerning the institution were presented during the gathering, but debate from the floor was limited. Princeton professor J. Gresham Machen addressed the Assembly, acknowledging the seminary’s historical proclamation of an “unpopular gospel.”[1] Machen then pled for the seminary to hold to this gospel, the true gospel, urging the Assembly not to allow the creeping influence of liberalism to extinguish old Princeton’s light.[2] Unmoved by Machen’s appeal, the Assembly voted to reorganize the seminary along new lines, and Machen resigned soon after.

Over the subsequent decade, Machen continued to battle what he considered to be the spread of theological liberalism. He founded a seminary, Westminster Theological Seminary, in 1929. And in 1936, Machen established a new denomination, The Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), which, in 1941, published its first Book of Church Order of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (BCOOPC).

Summary

The BCOOPC states that the OPC “is governed by three sets of documents” (vii). The primary authority is the Bible, the second standard is the OPC’s constitution composed of the OPC Confession of Faith and Catechism, while the BCOOPC itself serves as the tertiary standard.

The BCOOPC is composed of three parts that address the same categories as both the PCUSA’s Book of Church Order and those belonging to the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA). Thus, the BCOOPC’s initial section concerns church polity and is titled “The Form of Government.” The second addresses church discipline, and the third provides a “Directory for the Public Worship of God.”

Of the three, the BCOOPC’s church polity portion is by far the longest (32 chapters that comprise 89 pages). This section addresses the church’s head to how the church should be defined. It discusses the church’s purpose. It explains who church officers are and how they ought to be called and dismissed. The chapters in this portion cover much the same ground as that addressed in the PCUSA’s Books of Church Order; however, the BCOOPC provides several unique offerings on “Ministers Laboring Outside the Church,” “Organizations of Members of the Church,” and matters concerning “Incorporation and Corporation.”

The section titled “The Book of Discipline” is the shortest of the three. It provides a biblically sound explanation of the nature and purpose of church discipline, along with a consideration of the session’s and presbytery’s lines of jurisdiction. This section also delineates the steps to be taken in the disciplinary process, as well as providing clear instructions concerning the trying of church discipline cases.

The BCOOPC’s third section is composed of a preface and five chapters that attempt “to express the church’s common understanding of the principles and practice of public worship that is Reformed according to the Scriptures and, subordinately, to the Confession and Catechism” (121). While the subjects addressed—the elements of worship, the administration of the sacraments, and the public reception of church members—are unsurprising, it is noteworthy that all Scripture quotations in this section and in the forms that follow reflect the King James Version of the Bible, with a few exceptions.

Consistent with each section’s progressively practical nature, the BCOOPC concludes with a range of suggested forms for use in both church discipline and particular church services, with the final entry being a curriculum for all aspiring ministers in the OPC. This material is not intended to replace seminary study, but to clarify all that will be included in a ministerial candidate’s examination.

Distinctives

The BCOOPC is significantly shorter than its relative in the PCA. However, they share views on church polity that distinguish them sharply from Baptistic positions. For example:

• The BCOOPC regards the universal visible church as composed of believers and their children (3).
• The BCOOPC views the church’s offices as the minister or teaching elder, the ruling elder, and deacons (9–14).
  • The BCOOPC also provides a unique explanation of the role of evangelist and the teacher, where each may serve in a pastoral role within a local church or not (10–12).
• The BCOOPC acknowledges two classes of membership (17).
  • Communicant members are baptized believers who have made a credible profession of faith in Christ and are admitted to all the rights of church membership.
  • Noncommunicant members are the children of communicant members.
• The BCOOPC regards the church’s governance not as congregational but elder-ruled. A church’s elected elders (teaching and ruling) compose the Session (17).
• The BCOOPC holds the church’s highest court to be the General Assembly (23), followed by the Presbytery (20), and then the Session.
• The BCOOPC views baptism as a covenant sign of God’s grace to be administered to those who believe and their children (143).

Evaluation

As a resource for the OPC, the BCOOPC is a dense but practical guide aimed at keeping the church on mission while guarding it against theological drift. As Baptists, there is much to appreciate in the consistency provided by the established disciplinary processes and forms of worship.

There’s also much to be said for the rigor and intensity conveyed by the ministerial candidate curriculum. As a tradition that doesn’t possess a set standard for potential gospel ministers, leaving the evaluation of the pastor in the hands of the local congregation, we can glean much from the BCOOPC’s offering on this subject.

While Baptist polity differs from the polity presented in the BCOOPC, it’s clear that we are co-laborers in the gospel who worship the same “King and head of the church, the only Mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ” (1).

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Click here for a review of The Book of Church Order, by the PCA.

[1] David B. Calhoun, Princeton Seminary: The Majestic Testimony 1869–1929 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1996), 392.

[2] Ibid., 393.