12 Reasons Not to Adopt the Federal Vision Study Report & Its Recommendations
My original response to the Federal Vision Study Committee Report (“30 Reasons Why . . .”) is too long to be read in one short sitting. Consult my longer essay for citations and a fuller version of my arguments at www.federal-vision.com.
1. The Study Committee Report (hereafter, SCR) was not included in the Commissioner’s Handbook prior to the Assembly. The report existed only online at the denomination’s magazine, not on its General Assembly page. Some people without internet access will be asked to vote on a long, complex document with less than a day to study the SCR.
2. The SCR asks the Assembly to affirm that its interpretation of the Westminster standards is the correct one on a number of issues. This often runs roughshod over places where the Westminster Assembly wanted to accommodate a range of views. System subscription is the PCA’s standard, and the SCR comes close to introducing extra-confessional binding on matters that the Westminster standards do not address. For example, the committee wants to require every minister to affirm the imputation of the active obedience of Christ, a doctrinal formulation that the Westminster Confession of Faith was drafted specifically not to require because some of the prominent members of the assembly did not hold to it. All of the FV men believe that the "active obedience" of Christ (his sinless and righteous life) is necessary for our salvation. Every FV pastor or theologian cited by the SCR confesses justification because of Christ alone through faith alone. They all believe and confess the imputation of Christ's righteousness to believers. It is a narrow view of the imputation of the "active obedience" that is being debated. Adoption of the SCR would erroneously add to our standards.
3. The study committee did not contact personally any of the PCA men whose views they condemned in the report. I corresponded with all of the FV men named in the report and asked if the study committee had contacted them in any way – all reported that they were not contacted. The de facto result of accepting the report would be making official a particular appraisal of certain PCA Teaching Elders' teachings without any due process. If adopted, the SCR would seem to require the PCA as a whole to accept the SCR's appraisal of the FV men as the official interpretation of their views.
Thinner
All the Essential Reasons
Half the Verbiage
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
