So it’s all there in the WCF! If you look hard enough, you can root today’s controversies in an uninspired, errant, man-made but wonderfully helpful and sound document, which by the way, I am grateful to God for. Especially now! Now my arguments are no longer subjective, but objective, and confessionally referenced. Pirate and I agree on this. (jn)

Bob, thanks for at least pretending to talk about the subject for a change. However, your rhetoric indicates to me that you are under the incorrect impression that I support the Westminster Standards or subscription to them by any church body. I don’t. I subscribe to the Book of Concord, which entails a rejection of most of Westminster. Thus, I think they’re chock-full of false doctrine. See, just because I’m interested in what a document means or how it’s used in a church body does not mean I believe in what it says. I’m currently writing a paper on two decrees of Vatican II, Lumen Gentium and Unitatis Redintegratio, and what they mean for modern Roman Catholic theology. In my estimation, these two documents are garbage from beginning to end. But that doesn’t mean I have no desire to understand or interact with them. So stop acting so threatened when I suggest that WCF does or doesn’t say something. When I say “The Westminster Standards teach X,” that is not the same as saying “X is true.”

So the whole point of this discussion is not to try to force you to hold one theological viewpoint or another in obedience to the Standards. I have absolutely zero affection for Westminster. The point is that I’m trying to understand what the Standards say, how the PCA uses them, whether how the PCA uses them is actually consistent with what they say, and how this all reflects on their internal theological integrity and clarity. That is why I have found you up to this point extremely unhelpful. I am trying to wrap my mind around a historical document. its doctrinal significance, and its historical and ecclesiastical context, and you’re talking about your personal feelings and giving these sarcastic answers (as though WCF I is talking about the order of service!). I do have some thoughts and questions, though, if you’re interested in actually talking about your Standards:

Chapter XXVI is about the communion of saints, i.e. all Christians. Now this is something curious to me, since you’re using it to justify public preaching in the congregation by those who don’t subscribe to the Confession. But wouldn’t it justify public preaching by any Christian? Do Presbyterians not recognize a specific Office of the Ministry, or do they more take the view that God has set up general rules for governing the church, and anyone can minister as long as he’s following God’s rules? XXVI also says that Christians are “obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good.” Is baptism integral or tangential to congregational life according to the standards? If it is integral, it seems like it would be obviously not “conducive to the mutual good” for someone who denies the baptism of the congregation to preach to them. It would give the indication that baptism is irrelevant, or that one is free to break this part of the covenant without danger. The whole language of Westminster and the subsequent treatment of Baptists by the early Presbyterians and Puritans would indicate to me that baptism is fundamental to the Westminster understanding of the covenant and the life of the community, not auxiliary as you seem to present it. It says it is “a great sin to contemn or neglect this ordinance,” which someone who condemns infant baptism, withholds it from infants, or denies the validity of Presby baptisms would seem to be doing.

What about the earlier Catechism question I brought up? What does Q173 mean by “Such as are found to be ignorant or scandalous” that need to “receive instruction, and manifest their reformation” before they commune? Do you know? Did the early WCF subscribers commune Baptists, Arminians, supporters of the old state church, and Catholics?