Below I spoke of the lack of precision in rejecting alleged doctrinal error, and how personal loyalty is being used as a substitute for it in many cases. The problem, I suggested, was an unwillingness to suggest new creedal documents or revisions in old ones.

But what if someone actually grasped this nettle? What would they need to propose to “protect” my own denomination, the PCA:

I think we should start with the BCO since amendments are easier to make. For example, in the preliminary principle #3:

Our blessed Saviour, for the edification of the visible Church, which is His body, has appointed officers not only to preach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments, but also to exercise discipline for the preservation both of truth and duty (emphasis added).

If anyone really thinks that various “new” (?) thinking is a threat, they need to get this amended to say:

Our blessed Saviour, for the edification of the visible Church, which is not His body because only the invisible church may be described in this way, has appointed officers not only to preach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments, but also to exercise discipline for the preservation both of truth and duty.

Likewise, the beginning of the preface about Jesus being “THE KING AND HEAD OF THE CHURCH” would need to be rewritten so that it no longer included the emphasized words:

Jesus Christ, upon whose shoulders the government rests, whose name is called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace; of the increase of whose government and peace there shall be no end; who sits upon the throne of David, and upon His kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and justice from henceforth, even forever (Isaiah 9:6-7); having all power given unto Him in heaven and in earth by the Father, who raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand, far above all principality and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, and has put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the Head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all (Ephesians 1:20-23); He, being ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things, received gifts for His Church, and gave all offices necessary for the edification of His Church and the perfecting of His saints (Ephesians 4:10-13).

After all, this too makes the “body of Christ” the curch with offices–offices that are visible.

Personally, I don’t think we should make these revisions. If we were to do so, I think it is obvious we would be outside any possible permutation of a genuine Reformed heritage. But readers must make up their own mind.

For myself, it is not just about whether or not the BCO is preserving an ancient heritage (though I think that preface does go back a ways). Perhaps this is a sign of unregeneracy to Archibald Alexander, but my children are not thrilled about sitting through a long talk and hearing long portions of Scripture read, nor having to learn to read small print fast enough to learn new long songs with a vocabulary that is not already familiar to them (nothing personal, Jeff). So what am I to tell them? “Well God commands it as our duty, so there!” Sometimes I more or less say that. But more often I tell them that at Church we get renewed and strengthened in our union with Christ, whether we understand how it is happening or not. We are returning to the core of who we are, gathering as the Church, being built up in and as the body of Christ. I point out to them that Jesus eats and drinks with us (well, all of us the Reformed Tradition allows to come to Jesus for fellowship, anyway). I point out that as boring as sitting still is at one time there were no chairs in God’s presence. Priests were servants who had to work in God’s house and that was all. And there was no wine-drinking in the Tabernacle/Temple. No one got to relax with Jesus then. And few got to even enter it. Sure, God invited people to come eat and drink with him, but they had to stay outside. “Come on over and enjoy yourselves at my picnic, but don’t come closer than the porch.” Even kings were restricted and one was struck with exile just for trying to push into the front door. And here we are sitting among visible people who are living stones in the Temple of the Lord, and fellow members of the body of Christ. Here we see the body of Christ not as two-dimensional charicatures of the image of God, but as real images of God being truly renewed in the image of the Son of God.

And the officers are not simply a convenient arrangement for some sort of social device to stimulate contemplations of the invisible. When deacons assist you they are doing so as the Spirit-sent representatives of Jesus your helper and deliverer. And when the elders preside and lead the church they are acting in the person of Jesus Christ. And when your pastor, a minister of the Gospel, speaks to you as you are assembled as the body of Christ, you are hearing God’s voice, which has to be worth something even if you don’t always follow.

If that is not true, then why bother with church and worship? Even if the TULIP can be uprooted from the Reformed Faith and kept in a sterile hydroponic garden somewhere away from the earth and sky, why would anyone want to do it? I don’t see it. And ignorant panic about alleged correlations with popular conceptions of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy simply don’t have enough weight to keep me from loving what we have in its original form and raising my children as proud Presbyterians. (I’m hoping ecumenicity will come with maturity; right now my sons distribute black hats to all others without any encouragement from me. Tribalism is inherent in a child’s quest for identity, I guess.)

More amendments later if time permits.