The Reading Room - History

The Present State of American Presbyterianism

Introduction - Numerical Decline - Population Growth • Internal Conflicts • Conclusion - Sources

By: Dennis W. Jowers (WRS Adjunct Professor of Theology 2004)

IV. Conclusion

The conservative Presbyterian churches in America, accordingly, face an extraordinary challenge. They must eradicate the Auburn Avenue theology simply in order to remain evangelical Christian churches; and yet they must not allow themselves to become so engrossed in this and other intra-Presbyterian controversies that they fail to communicate the Reformed faith to the 99.77 % of Americans who are not conservative Reformed Christians. All Reformed denominations must become aggressive, enterprising, and enthusiastic in their evangelism and outreach if they are to gain an appreciable number of adherents. Countless congregations, in fact, need radically to reform themselves simply in order to survive.

Reformed churches need desperately, for example, to relieve pastors of administrative duties in order to free them for sermon preparation and personal evangelism. Programs of proven effectiveness such as Evangelism Explosion clinics and Rutherford House’s Reformed alternative to the Alpha Course ought to be exploited more than they are at present. Aggressive programs of visitation ought to be implemented. Expedients as simple as encouraging individuals to target selected friends, relatives, and neighbors to evangelize need to be used on a much wider scale than they are at present. The present state of American Presbyterianism is, after all, abysmal. Without in any way altering or diluting the Reformed faith, the Reformed churches must radically increase their evangelistic efforts if they are to emerge from their present, bleak situation.

WORKS CITED

¹ See website thearda.com. ² See website pcanet.org.

³ Cf. e.g. Rich Lusk’s essay, “A Response to ‘The Biblical Plan of Salvation,’” in The Auburn Avenue Theology: Pros & Cons: Debating the Federal Vision (ed. E. Calvin Beisner; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.: Knox Theological Seminary, 2004), 118–48, which is a polemic against the notion of a covenant of works distinct from the covenant of grace.

⁴ “A problem is created,” writes Doug Wilson, “when we affirm a belief in two Churches at the same moment in time, one visible and the other invisible. . . . This leads to a disparagement of the visible Church, and eventually necessitates, I believe, a baptistic understanding of the Church,” Reformed is not Enough: Recovering the Objectivity of the Covenant (Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press, 2002), 74.
⁵ In the words of Steve Wilkins, “The Bible teaches us that baptism unites us to Christ and His body by the power of the Holy Spirit. . . . At baptism, we are clothed with Christ, united to Him and to His Church, which is His body,” The Federal Vision (Monroe, La.: Athanasius Press, 2004), 55.
⁶ Cf. Wilson, Reformed is Not Enough, 74.
⁷ “Men fall away,” writes Wilson, “because their salvation was contingent upon continued faithfulness in the gospel” (ibid. 138).
⁸ “All in covenant,” writes Wilkins, “are given all that is true of Christ” (“Covenant, Baptism, and Salvation,” Auburn Avenue Theology, 254–69 at 263. Every person in covenant, affirms Wilkins, possesses “all things that pertain to life and godliness” (ibid. 267).
⁹ John Barach explain the Auburn Avenue theorists’ conception of assurance thus:

If one can belong to God for a time…and yet later fall away and perish, then how can one know that he will belong to God, not just temporarily but forever? To answer that question, it may be helpful to think about a family which has just adopted . . . a child. How can that child be sure that he will always be a member of the family? How does he know he will not one day be disinherited? He can have that assurance because he is a member of the family now, because his parents feed him and hug him and tell him they love him, because he trusts his parents not to disinherit him without cause, and because he responds to them as a faithful child, making his adoption sure. And so it is with us. Covenant-breakers will be cut off and they ought to tremble. But no one who trusts in God will be put to shame (“Covenant and Election,” Auburn Avenue Theology, 149–56 at 156).

We leave it to the reader to determine whether the assurance spoken of by Barach corresponds to the “infallible assurance of faith” spoken of by the Westminster divines.
¹⁰ “A faithful Christian,” writes Wilson, “looks to his baptism for assurance” (Reformed is Not Enough, 130).

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