Essential Tenets of FPC Douglasville: Tenet #1

The leadership of our congregation is discerning how to respond to the changing positions of our denomination that fall outside of the historic beliefs and commitments that have guided the Church for more than two millennia. Part of that process is to ensure that we are aligned in our beliefs and practices with the historic identity of our Presbyterian/Reformed, Christian heritage. It is no good pointing fingers if our own house isn’t right theologically.

To that end, the Session adopted a set of essential tenets. “Essential tenets” is an unusual phrase for most of us. An essential tenet means an important, foundational belief that is critical to our identity as Reformed Christians. Essential tenets are those beliefs that we cannot abandon without losing our identity. Non-essential describes those things that are not critical. Jesus as the Incarnation of God is an essential tenet; the color of carpeting in a Sanctuary is non-essential (at least to most).

The session has adopted a list of essential tenets that are intended to express our theological identity within the historic orthodoxy of our Reformed, Christian heritage.  The Session’s statement draws heavily upon the work of the Fellowship of Presbyterians document, “The Fellowship Theology Project.” Our list has some additions and changes from theirs. The full list as well as links to the Fellowship of Presbyterians document can be found on the “What We Believe” page of our website under the “About FPC” tab. For those concerned about the polity issues related to adoption of essential tenets, these tenets do no bind the conscience or practices of the congregation’s Officer Nominating Committee nor are they used as an requirement for membership in the church.

Over the next 12 weeks, this blog will reflect on each one of the essential tenets. These are my thoughts alone; they are not official statements of the Session of FPC or any other organization.

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The first tenet is “The Bible is the infallible and authoritative self-revelation of God.” To expand on that, “we glorify God by recognizing and receiving his authoritative self-revelation, both in the infallible Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments and also in the incarnation of God through the Son.” (The Fellowship Theology Project, pg. 1)

Why is this important? One of the prevailing philosophies of our culture is that there are no absolute truths, or universal standards of right and wrong. The Bible, we believe, is God’s revelation of his universal truth. It is true and reliable. Culture will always push the adoption of novel ideas, practices, and philosophies under the rubric of “progress.” In each case, we go back to Scripture to make sure we don’t stray from God’s truth, which is trustworthy in every age.

To keep Scripture authoritative, we need to consider four “musts”, even though must is an unpopular word in our age of personal liberty.

1) We must study Scripture – both the Old and New Testaments. This is the most obvious. We cannot know what it means to be Christian from any other source than the Bible. Most of us are generally convinced that we know the Bible. The greater likelihood is that we know the parts of the Bible that are helpful or agree with our opinions. We tend to ignore the parts that we think aren’t necessary or helpful. If that is the case, we don’t really know the Bible fully. 

More importantly, the Bible is too deep and too profound to read it once and think we know it. The interplay between the Holy Spirit and our reading of Scripture means that the same text can give us new insights and convictions every time we read it. We don’t need to just know the Bible’s content, we need to be lifelong students of it.

2) We must adhere to a rigorous exegetical process to extract how to apply its teachings to the most pressing issues of the day. We can’t fall into the trap on the far right, which is to only use a surface reading of the text and apply it in ways that may not speak to the true intent of the passage. This is often called “proof texting” and it’s how you get to a ban on women’s ordination. 

Nor can we fall into the trap on the far left, which is to so deconstruct the texts of the Bible that you silence it on the great moral issues plaguing our culture today. This is how some can say the message of the Bible on matters of sexuality and sexual practice is complex and polyvocal, and therefore open for the adaptation to whatever is the prevailing mood of culture. The Bible really isn’t so confused on these issues. 

Good study of Scripture takes seriously the language, the context literally and historically, and the clear intention of the greater witness of Scripture – which is to say that Scripture will never contradict itself in regards to its central truths. Through a faithful engagement of this process, and through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we will as a community find the appropriate message of the Bible for our lives today. 

3)  We must let Scripture define us. Scripture is not a club we use to beat our opinions into other people. Nor is Scripture a leaping off point for a great philosophical project that incorporates other sources as truth equal to Scripture. Instead, we humbly submit ourselves to its teachings. It defines the boundaries for faithful obedience to God. When any truth claim is asserted by any source in culture, we always go back to this rigorous study of Scripture to see if it is faithful to God’s truth or not. If it is, then we celebrate and support it. If it is not, then we stay away from it. 

4) We must live it. The greatest testimony to our belief in the authority of Scripture is that we demonstrate a life lived in conformity to it. If it doesn't change our behavior, then it simply isn't authoritative. Making Scripture authoritative means far more than simply having the right positions on the culture war issues, while living indifferently to what else the Bible reveals about the Christian life. To live under the authority of Scripture means to strive to follow Scripture in all that it says, for example, about personal behavior in all areas of our lives like pride, greed, anger, peace, or in what it says about injustice in the world, and or in what it says about caring for the widow, the orphans and the least among us.

Do you trust the Bible to reveal God’s absolute truth for the world? Do you have a regular practice for reading and studying the Bible? How well does your life reflect a commitment to the authority of Scripture.

Scripture references to read and consider: 2 Timothy 3:10-17, Matthew 5:17-20, 2 Peter 1:16-21.

Book of Confession references: Scots Confession, 3.18; 3.19; Westminster Confession, 6.002; 6.009; The Confession of 1967, 9.27, 9.49