Seminary professor proposes ‘filling an empty church’


By William Vanderbloemen
Layman Correspondent

“The truly open-minded church becomes the truly empty church, a church with nothing to preach and no gospel to serve.”
CHARLOTTE – At a General Assembly breakfast sponsored by Presbyterians For Renewal, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary professor Andrew Purves called for the church to recover sound doctrine. “Doctrine is the church’s talk about God,” said Purves, “what God does, and what God requires of us. Mess around with that stuff, and the Gospel unravels. Mess around with that stuff, and we soon discover that we don’t know what we are doing. That is why doctrine is so important.”

Recovering doctrine
How is the church seeking to recover doctrine? Purves said he sees signs of hope in a work commissioned by the Presbyterian Coalition. “Those who think that last year’s Gathering [a September 1997 meeting of the Coalition that attracted more than 1,000 Presbyterians] was just a blip on the screen are very wrong…the sense that something significant happened there was everywhere felt among evangelicals.”

One outcome of the Coalition’s Gathering was the formation of a “Visioning Team” that was commissioned to write a declaration of faith and a comprehensive set of strategies for the transformation of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Purves played a major role in that group.

Dealing with doctrinal diversity
“Many of us feel a shift in the doctrinal wind,” said Purves. “For a number of years we have sensed that the old uneasy but largely workable alliance between theological liberals, institutional traditionalists, and orthodox confessionalists was breaking down … Doctrine has become the issue.” Purves illustrated the deepening divide by pointing to Building Community Among Strangers, a study paper produced by the General Assembly Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy. “Whatever its final form and status, [this document] already more than suggests that there is vast doctrinal diversity on the understanding of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ for salvation.”

Purves called attention to the fact that Christian doctrine has a strong historical element that can never be separated from Scripture: “While we are a church reformed and always reforming, we must remember the last clause of that phrase. We are ‘reformed and always reforming, according to the Word of God.’”

Purves stressed that the church must keep within the bounds of our biblical reformed tradition. He said, “The apprehension of truth in a Christian context is not static, it is open to reformation. But neither is it fluid. We are grounded in a great tradition that guards and guides us in our worship of God and witness to Jesus Christ today.”

Open minds and empty churches What happens when the church compromises her tradition? Purves shared with the group an old friend’s advice, “A philosophy professor once taught me that the truly open mind is a truly empty mind. I might recast that a bit and say that with regard to core doctrine, the truly open-minded church becomes the truly empty church, a church with nothing to preach and no gospel to serve.”

Purves pointed to hopeful signs. He noted that the recent ordination debates that have torn the church apart have actually forced the church to recognize its need to study theology. He said, “Over the last year or so, we have been successful in putting the doctrine of Jesus Christ – Christology – at the center of our conversations once again.”

Purves stated that this renewed interest in doctrine is a watershed event. He quoted passages from the Visioning Team’s report to demonstrate its doctrinal depth and soundness. “Jesus alone is the way to the Father,” he said, “and in the words of the Declaration of Faith, ‘His Lordship casts down every idolatrous claim to authority. His appearing judges every other path to God.’ The particularity of the christological claim will always be the issue on which there is no room for equivocation.”

The initial draft of the Declaration and Vision Statement was approved in substance at a Coalition meeting in May. The final draft will be presented at “Gathering III” in Dallas, October 8-10.
The Gathering III

October 8-10 • Dallas, Texas
The main feature of the event will be the presentation and proposed adoption of a report from the Visioning Task Force, which has been at work since Gathering II. It will also assess the aftermath of the landslide vote against Amendment A and of the General Assembly’s meeting in Charlotte.

For more information call:
The Presbyterian Coalition 502-327-9127

The Presbyterian Layman, July/August 1998 contents

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