Confessing Churches take some self-inflicted barbs
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, March 5, 2002
ATLANTA – Along with the expected hurrahs at the National Celebration of Confessing Churches in Atlanta on Feb. 24-26, there were some self-inflicted Biblical barbs intended to keep the movement within its Scriptural boundaries.
In that sense, the movement showed signs of being both Reformed and reforming – ad verbum deo, according to the Word of God, the phrase that fades out of the theologically liberal mantra and is recast as “change for the sake of cultural change” without Scriptural underpinning.
Dr. Mark Achtemeier, an evangelical professor of theology at Dubuque Theological Seminary in Iowa, delivered the most pointed barbs, but others – including Dr. Roberta Hestenes and fiery Presbyterian preacher Jim Logan – tossed them as well.
The criticisms, however sharp, were not intended to deflate the Confessing Church Movement but to help shape it up for a stronger evangelical witness in a shrinking denomination.
Achtemeier hit the hardest with his warning that the participants in the movement shun the self-righteousness of the Pharisees of the New Testament. Both Hestenes and Logan called for repentance and deeper commitment.
Achtemeier’s assignment was to address the business of holiness. A commitment to God’s standards of holiness is the third affirmation of the Confessing Church Movement – along with 1) that Christ alone is Savior and Lord and 2) that Scripture is the infallible rule of faith and life.
Commending the witness of Confessing Churches and their role in the overwhelming defeat of Amendment 01-A – a proposal that would declare contrary to Scripture that sex outside of marriage is not sinful – Achtemeier said there are other important issues ahead.
“As disciples pledged to the Lordship of Christ and the authority of Scripture,” he said, “we know that defending and proclaiming the truth is not enough; we must also live out the truth in love. Jesus warns about the dangers of confessing the truth without living it.”
“What does a church and a denomination look like that embodies and lives out that commitment to holiness which the Confessing Churches have so faithfully lifted up?” he asked.
First, he said, there is no “middle way” – such as extolled by some of the leaders of the denomination and those on the left. “The first thing we simply must say is that holiness under the Lordship of Christ and the authority of Scripture has no place for a so-called ‘middle way.’ Jesus warns us about the dangers of middle-way compromises: ‘Enter by the narrow gate,’ he says.
“But the New Testament also testifies that it is just here, as we seek the narrow gate of righteousness, that the quest for holiness becomes especially hazardous. The devil is never more dangerous than when he shows up at the foot of the altar.
“The New Testament has many examples of solid, Bible-believing folk like you and me who have repudiated middle-way compromises and devoted themselves to the higher righteousness. I am referring, of course, to the Pharisees.
“The Pharisees, as much as any Confessing Church member, were striving for a holiness that repudiated easy compromises with a corrupting culture. These were people intensely serious about living out a Biblical faith. Yet the really unnerving thing is that the New Testament singles out the Pharisees for special attention as people who did not “get it” when it came to Jesus. Jesus hangs out with real sinners- scores of genuinely contemptible and unrighteous persons. And yet for all of that, it is the Bible-believing Pharisees who receive his most blistering condemnations.”