Could it be that the Westminster Standards (the Confessions and
Catechisms) were never intended to be standards? Did the early
Protestant Reformers create an opening for future gay marriage within
the Reformed tradition? If we take Jack Rogers seriously in his new
introduction to a reprint of a classic book, the answer is yes.
Westminster John Knox Press has just “re-released”
Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, a work originally
published in 1966, and edited by the late Arthur C. Cochrane
(1909-2002), a Presbyterian pastor in Canada who later came to teach at
both Dubuque and Pittsburgh seminaries. In this book, Cochrane collected
the major Reformed Confessions at the time of the Reformation, several
of which were published before Calvin ever settled in Geneva.
Cochrane was an early North American interpreter of the theology
of Karl Barth, whose influence is apparent in Cochrane’s
introductions in the book. Cochrane even included the Theological
Declaration of Barmen (penned by Barth) in the appendix to the book.
WJK Press has done us a great service by reprinting this work, as it
remains an important English resource for the early confessions.
However, Rogers’ new introduction to the work seeks to undo the
very Reformed confessional heritage that this book was originally
intended to celebrate.
Attacking the standard
Rogers’ introduction is intended to update for our time Cochrane’s
original introduction. But Rogers uses his introduction to attack both
the fidelity-chastity ordination standard as well as the Confessing
Church Movement (though the latter in a more subtle fashion). For that
matter, Rogers’ introduction is so focused on the life of the PCUSA
one gets the impression that it must be the only Reformed body in North
America.
Rogers implies that his view in support of homosexual marriage finds
support in the sixteenth century confessions. Referring to the reformers
rejection of priestly celibacy, he states, “Recognizing the
powerful human need for sexual expression, the reformers insisted that
marriage is intended by God to answer that need. The notion that a class
of people must refrain from marriage in order to please God was labeled
false and subject to abuse” (p. vii). If anyone is uncertain that
Rogers is using the reformers’ rejection of clerical celibacy as a
subtle way of attacking the fidelity/chastity, he states in the very
next paragraph, “Our human problems, in principle, are similar to
those of sixteenth-century people, and the confessions’ central
guidance is still sound” (p. viii).
A skewed reading
Rogers’ reading of the confessional tradition here is a bit skewed.
The reformers did not so much acknowledge “the powerful human need
for sexual expression” (as they knew the difference between needs
and desires) as the human tendency to sexual immorality, and thus the
need for marriage. Sexual immorality among the clergy was a major
problem in the church prior to the Reformation. The early Reformed Ten
Theses of Berne (Switzerland), published 8 years before Calvin came to
Geneva, does state in its ninth thesis: “Holy matrimony is not
forbidden in Scripture to any class of men, but is granted to all in
order to avoid adultery or fornication” (p. 50). However, to
extrapolate that the expression “any class of men” would
include homosexuals is nothing short of confessional abuse, especially
since the very next thesis from the Berne confession states: “Since,
according to Scripture an open adulterer is to be excommunicated, it
follows that because of the scandal involved, fornication and adultery
are more pernicious for the clergy than for any other class of men”
(p. 50).
Jack Rogers
In his comments on the Barmen Declaration, Rogers underplays its
importance to the Reformed confessional tradition for the twentieth
century. During his reign as moderator, he frequently attacked the
Confessing Church Movement for its appeal to the Declaration and the
Confessing Church in Germany. He maintained that given Barmen’s
confession against the Nazis, any comparison of our situation with
theirs bordered on “bearing false witness.” Rogers sees Barmen
primarily as a protest against the injustices of Nazi Germany. He
summarizes the first article of Barmen as saying: “Essentially,
Adolf Hitler was not Lord” (p. ix). The problem with Rogers’
understanding of Barmen is that it is at odds with the position of its
principle writer, Karl Barth. In his
Church Dogmatics, Barth
argues that what Barmen was confessing against was not simply the Nazis
or their party in the church, but the theological tradition which had
paved the way for the Nazification of the German church, Protestant
Liberalism (see Church Dogmatics, 2/1 pp. 172-178). In this, there is
definitely continuity between Barmen and the Confessing Church Movement
in the PCUSA.
Neglecting the Scripture
Rogers also criticizes the translation of the Heidelberg Catechism that
appears in Cochrane’s work for its use of the phrase “homosexual
perversion” in answer 87 of the catechism, where it appears in a
list of behaviors that exclude one from the kingdom of heaven. Some
readers will remember that several years ago there was an attempt to
alter this phrase in our own
Book of Confessions (as it is the
same translation that is in Cochrane’s book). Rogers states that “no
such reference appears in the original.” What Rogers neglects to
say, however, is that answer 87 is a quotation from 1 Corinthians
6:9-10, which in the original Greek is even more explicit than the
translation contained in the catechism. If anything, the translation in
the catechism softens the original.
Finally, Rogers attacks those who have “asked for a precise
definition of ‘essential tenets’ since they desire to use the
confessions “juridically,” arguing that it was never the
intent of the Reformed confessions to be used this way. Rogers states, “To
use confessions from previous centuries as contemporary laws fails to
recognize that humans not only applied the gospel to their situation,
but that they did so with the assumptions of their time and culture”
(p. xiii). Then Rogers asserts that the addition of G-6.0106b to the
Book of Order is an example of this “juridical,” and
thus inappropriate, use of the Reformed confessional heritage. Rogers
seems to forget that at one time those ordained to church office in the
Presbyterian Church subscribed to the Westminster standards, and were
obliged to declare whatever “scruples” they had with the
standards. Indeed, this is still the case in other Reformed
denominations in North America. Rogers’ approach to the confessions
effectively “de-confessionalizes” the Presbyterian Church. It
is ironic that Rogers, the self-described “confessing moderator”
of the “Confessing Assembly” (that was unwilling to confess
Jesus Christ alone as Lord), argues that there can be no “juridical”
use of the entire first volume of the Constitution of the Presbyterian
Church (USA),
The Book of Confessions. For Rogers, the
confessions seem best left under glass as historical/ecclesiastical
artifacts. Yet, Rogers asserted throughout his term as moderator that
the Confessing Church Movement is unnecessary because the PCUSA is a
confessional church.
This new edition of Cochrane’s
Reformed Confessions of the
Sixteenth Century is a book worth getting, especially for those who
love the Reformed confessional heritage. How ironic it is that WJK Press
would include a new introduction in it that undermines that very
heritage.
Walter L. Taylor is pastor of Forest Park Presbyterian Church in
Statesville, N.C.