Former moderator undermines PCUSA’s confessional history Rev. Walter L. Taylor Special to The Layman Volume 36, Number 5 Posted November 24, 2003 Could it be that the Westminster Standards (the Confessions and Catechisms) were never intended to be standards? Did the early Protestant Reformers create an opening for future gay marriage within the Reformed tradition? If we take Jack Rogers seriously in his new introduction to a reprint of a classic book, the answer is yes. Westminster John Knox Press has just “re-released” Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, a work originally published in 1966, and edited by the late Arthur C. Cochrane (1909-2002), a Presbyterian pastor in Canada who later came to teach at both Dubuque and Pittsburgh seminaries. In this book, Cochrane collected the major Reformed Confessions at the time of the Reformation, several of which were published before Calvin ever settled in Geneva. Cochrane was an early North American interpreter of the theology of Karl Barth, whose influence is apparent in Cochrane’s introductions in the book. Cochrane even included the Theological Declaration of Barmen (penned by Barth) in the appendix to the book. WJK Press has done us a great service by reprinting this work, as it remains an important English resource for the early confessions. However, Rogers’ new introduction to the work seeks to undo the very Reformed confessional heritage that this book was originally intended to celebrate. Attacking the standard Rogers’ introduction is intended to update for our time Cochrane’s original introduction. But Rogers uses his introduction to attack both the fidelity-chastity ordination standard as well as the Confessing Church Movement (though the latter in a more subtle fashion). For that matter, Rogers’ introduction is so focused on the life of the PCUSA one gets the impression that it must be the only Reformed body in North America. Rogers implies that his view in support of homosexual marriage finds support in the sixteenth century confessions. Referring to the reformers rejection of priestly celibacy, he states, “Recognizing the powerful human need for sexual expression, the reformers insisted that marriage is intended by God to answer that need. The notion that a class of people must refrain from marriage in order to please God was labeled false and subject to abuse” (p. vii). If anyone is uncertain that Rogers is using the reformers’ rejection of clerical celibacy as a subtle way of attacking the fidelity/chastity, he states in the very next paragraph, “Our human problems, in principle, are similar to those of sixteenth-century people, and the confessions’ central guidance is still sound” (p. viii). A skewed reading Rogers’ reading of the confessional tradition here is a bit skewed. The reformers did not so much acknowledge “the powerful human need for sexual expression” (as they knew the difference between needs and desires) as the human tendency to sexual immorality, and thus the need for marriage. Sexual immorality among the clergy was a major problem in the church prior to the Reformation. The early Reformed Ten Theses of Berne (Switzerland), published 8 years before Calvin came to Geneva, does state in its ninth thesis: “Holy matrimony is not forbidden in Scripture to any class of men, but is granted to all in order to avoid adultery or fornication” (p. 50). However, to extrapolate that the expression “any class of men” would include homosexuals is nothing short of confessional abuse, especially since the very next thesis from the Berne confession states: “Since, according to Scripture an open adulterer is to be excommunicated, it follows that because of the scandal involved, fornication and adultery are more pernicious for the clergy than for any other class of men” (p. 50). Jack Rogers In his comments on the Barmen Declaration, Rogers underplays its importance to the Reformed confessional tradition for the twentieth century. During his reign as moderator, he frequently attacked the Confessing Church Movement for its appeal to the Declaration and the Confessing Church in Germany. He maintained that given Barmen’s confession against the Nazis, any comparison of our situation with theirs bordered on “bearing false witness.” Rogers sees Barmen primarily as a protest against the injustices of Nazi Germany. He summarizes the first article of Barmen as saying: “Essentially, Adolf Hitler was not Lord” (p. ix). The problem with Rogers’ understanding of Barmen is that it is at odds with the position of its principle writer, Karl Barth. In his Church Dogmatics, Barth argues that what Barmen was confessing against was not simply the Nazis or their party in the church, but the theological tradition which had paved the way for the Nazification of the German church, Protestant Liberalism (see Church Dogmatics, 2/1 pp. 172-178). In this, there is definitely continuity between Barmen and the Confessing Church Movement in the PCUSA. Neglecting the Scripture Rogers also criticizes the translation of the Heidelberg Catechism that appears in Cochrane’s work for its use of the phrase “homosexual perversion” in answer 87 of the catechism, where it appears in a list of behaviors that exclude one from the kingdom of heaven. Some readers will remember that several years ago there was an attempt to alter this phrase in our own Book of Confessions (as it is the same translation that is in Cochrane’s book). Rogers states that “no such reference appears in the original.” What Rogers neglects to say, however, is that answer 87 is a quotation from 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, which in the original Greek is even more explicit than the translation contained in the catechism. If anything, the translation in the catechism softens the original. Finally, Rogers attacks those who have “asked for a precise definition of ‘essential tenets’ since they desire to use the confessions “juridically,” arguing that it was never the intent of the Reformed confessions to be used this way. Rogers states, “To use confessions from previous centuries as contemporary laws fails to recognize that humans not only applied the gospel to their situation, but that they did so with the assumptions of their time and culture” (p. xiii). Then Rogers asserts that the addition of G-6.0106b to the Book of Order is an example of this “juridical,” and thus inappropriate, use of the Reformed confessional heritage. Rogers seems to forget that at one time those ordained to church office in the Presbyterian Church subscribed to the Westminster standards, and were obliged to declare whatever “scruples” they had with the standards. Indeed, this is still the case in other Reformed denominations in North America. Rogers’ approach to the confessions effectively “de-confessionalizes” the Presbyterian Church. It is ironic that Rogers, the self-described “confessing moderator” of the “Confessing Assembly” (that was unwilling to confess Jesus Christ alone as Lord), argues that there can be no “juridical” use of the entire first volume of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA), The Book of Confessions. For Rogers, the confessions seem best left under glass as historical/ecclesiastical artifacts. Yet, Rogers asserted throughout his term as moderator that the Confessing Church Movement is unnecessary because the PCUSA is a confessional church. This new edition of Cochrane’s Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century is a book worth getting, especially for those who love the Reformed confessional heritage. How ironic it is that WJK Press would include a new introduction in it that undermines that very heritage. Walter L. Taylor is pastor of Forest Park Presbyterian Church in Statesville, N.C.

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