Points To Ponder

Confessionalism is a churchly, theological, sacramental, disciplined approach to Christianity that is probably fairly described as elitist inasmuch as The faith is mediated to the masses by the ministers. There are not endless permutations of the “Reformed” faith. As Hodge pointed out in the 19th century, anyone with a little effort can discover what Reformed folk believe by reading the classic theologies or, better yet, the Reformed confessions. Further, there is not only a Reformed theology, but also a Reformed piety and a Reformed practice and none of these three things is very compatible with American evangelicalism or liberalism. Both evangelicalism and liberalism are theologically subjectivist, pietist, and pragmatist in praxis.

There are conservatives, who embrace the past but must negotiate a modus vivendi with American Religion, and there are liberals who are quite ready to discard the past and go where ever the culture demands so as to try to remain “relevant” and influential. There is a third way to relate to American religion, however, and that is confessionalism, which is neither liberal nor conservative, but it is what the Reformed Churches have always confessed to be the theology, piety, and practice revealed in the Word of God.

Dr. R. S. Clark

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