This is the third (not including the short interlude after part 1) installment in a series considering standards for ordination in the PC(USA) after the adoption of 10-A and the now not so new Form of Government. Accusations from some corners of the church have been hurled claiming that the net result of the adoption of these new standards is that there are no longer standards for ordained service in the church. In the first two posts of this series, I tried to show that this assumption is both factually in accurate and a misunderstanding of our polity.
In this third installment, I consider the question of what constitutes the Reformed faith. A complaint made by some in the church (including the leaders of the FOP/ECO) is that we speak of essentials but we do not name them. So what does it mean to say we affirm the "essential tenets of the Reformed faith?"
Because the General Assembly and the GA Permanant Judicial Commission have declined to allow such a list to be produced, we cannot point to a particular piece of paper and say "these are the essentials." So where do we go? Perhaps a good starting point would be the very vows that contain that troubling phrase.
With the exception of the last which are unique to each ordered ministry, the vows taken by Teaching and Ruling Elders and Deacons are identical. Since these words are the one place where each and every officer is asked to affirm the exact same language, we may find some clues as to what is "essential" here.
Question one asks if the candidate "trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ your Savior, acknowledge him Lord of all and Head of the Church, and through him believe in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit?" In that first question are, perhaps, three things that might be called essential and which are solidly Reformed. 1. Jesus Christ is Savior. 2. Jesus Christ and no other is Head of the Church. 3. We affirm the Triune nature of God.
In that one question, three traditional, orthodox and solidly Reformed principles are affirmed.
The second question concerns scripture and asks if the candidate accepts "the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ..." Yet again, a solidly Reformed understanding of a tenet of the faith. Scripture is unique and authoritative (notice it is not inerrant) by the Holy Spirit.
In that second question, a traditional, orthodox and solidly Reformed principle of scripture is affirmed.
I will not go through every question, but the point is clear. There may be no list titled "These Are the Essential Tenets of the Reformed Faith," but there is ample evidence in the vows taken by every person ordained or installed to office in the church reflect a solidly Reformed understanding of God, scripture and church. These ideas are essential enough to require them of every person being ordained without exception.
So if the vows we take reflect such solidly Reformed ideas and require affirmation of these essential ideas, what is the real issue?
Like so many things in the church, the conflict over "essential tenets" is less about making a list and more about a culture of distrust.
The ordination vows set out a solidly Reformed theology. If everyone in ordered ministry takes those vows, what is the problem? Simply this, a group in the church appears to believe that others who have different viewpoints are somehow insincere when they take their vows. The next installment will explore that mistrust.
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