Top Eleven Books of 2009

Here's a top eleven list of the books I read in 2009 (not counting re-reads):

1. Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice, R. Scott Clark
2. The Glory of Christ, John Owen
   
3. Dual Citizens: Worship and Life Between the Already and the Not Yet, Jason Stellman
4. Risking the Truth: Handling Error in the Church, Martin Downes
   
5. On the First Day of the Week: God, the Christian, and the Sabbath, Iain D. Campbell
6. The Westminster Assembly: Reading Its Theology in Historical Context, Robert Letham
7. Reformed Theology in America, ed. David Wells
   
8. Seeking a Better Country: 300 Years of American Presbyterianism, D.G. Hart and John R. Muether
9. With Reverence and Awe: Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship, D.G. Hart and John R. Muether
10. The Preaching of Jonathan Edwards, John Carrick
11. Calvin and the Sabbath: The Controversy of Applying the Fourth Commandment, Richard Gaffin
    

2009 Study on Reformed Worship

This year, while I didn't limit myself to it, Reformed worship was my special focus of study. In January I was vigorously preparing to stand before the Missouri Presbytery (PCA) for my final oral ordination exam. I had a basic understanding of the regulative principle of worship (RPW) and what has become the usual view of images of Christ and the Sabbath (i.e. taking exception to the Confession's proscription of any use of images and recreation on the Sabbath). By summer I had formally withdrawn my two exceptions. As the year comes to a close, I think I have a pretty good grasp of the RPW and am fully convinced of the Confession's teaching on the use of images and the Sabbath day.

Excluding blog posts and podcasts, here are the books and articles I read on Reformed worship this year in no particular order (some were re-reads):

On worship proper:

• Worship: Reformed According to Scripture, Hughes Oliphant Old
• With Reverence and Awe: Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship, D.G. Hart and John R. Muether
• A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of Christ-Centered Worship, Michael Horton
• The Westminster Directory of Public Worship, Discussed by Mark Dever and Sinclair Ferguson
• Scripture and Worship: Biblical Interpretation & the Directory for Worship, Richard A. Muller and Rowland S. Ward
• A Primer on Worship: Recovering the High Church Puritan, Douglas Wilson
• Reformed Worship: Worship that is According to Scripture, Terry L. Johnson
• The Worship of God: Reformed Concepts of Biblical Worship, Johnson, Godfrey, Pipa, Smith, Schwertley, Shaw, Blair
• The Family Worship Book: A Resource for Family Devotions, Terry L. Johnson
• "Reframing Presbyterian Worship: A Critical Survey of the Worship Views of John M. Frame and R.J. Gore," Frank J. Smith and David C. Lachman, The Confessional Presbyterian, vol. 1, 2005
  
• "In Brief: Samuel Miller On The Regulative Principle of Worship and On 'Holy Days,'" Samuel Miller, The Confessional Presbyterian, vol. 1, 2005
  

On the Lord's Supper:

• Children at the Lord's Table: Assessing the Case for Paedocommunion, Cornelis P. Venema
• The Lord's Supper: Eternal Word in Broken Bread, Robert Letham
• The Puritans on the Lord's Supper, Vines, Calamy, Wadsworth, Alleine, Watson

On the Sabbath:

• On the First Day of the Week: God, the Christian, and the Sabbath, Iain D. Campbell
• The Lord's Day, Joseph A. Pipa, Jr.
• The Market Day of the Soul: The Puritan Doctrine of the Sabbath in England 1532-1700, James T. Dennison, Jr.
• Calvin and the Sabbath: The Controversy of Applying the Fourth Commandment, Richard Gaffin
• Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Francis Turretin, trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison, Jr., Eleventh Topic, The Law of God, The Fourth Commandment.
  
• "The Sabbath Day and Recreations on the Sabbath: An Examination of the Sabbath and the Biblical Basis for the 'No Recreation' Clause in the Westminster Confession of Faith 21.8 and the Westminster Larger Catechism 117," Lane Keister, The Confessional Presbyterian, vol. 5, 2009

On Puritan-Reformed identity (which includes The Regulative Principle of Worship):

• The Westminster Assembly: Reading Its Theology in Historical Context, Robert Letham
• Puritanism: A Very Short Introduction, Francis J. Bremer
• Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice, R. Scott Clark
• Worldly Saints: The Puritans As They Really Were, Leland Ryken
• Seeking a Better Country: 300 Years of American Presbyterianism, D.G. Hart and John R. Muether
• Reformed Theology in America, ed. David Wells
• How Do We Glorify God?, John D. Hannah
• A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life, J.I. Packer
• The Westminster Confession into the 21st Century, vol. 1, ed. Ligon Duncan
• The Westminster Confession into the 21st Century, vol. 2, ed. Ligon Duncan
  

J. Gresham Machen: On the Sin of Indifference

I read J. Gresham Machen's classic work Christianity and Liberalism for the first time last year. It's one of those books I'd like to reread annually, so I retrieved it from the shelf today and began to browse it in my last few minutes at the office. I plan to reread it in the next few days.

Machen has this to say about the sin of indifference:

It is often said that the divided condition of Christendom is an evil, and so it is. But the evil consists in the existence of the errors which cause the divisions and not at all in the recognition of those errors when once they exist. It was a great calamity when at the "Marburg Conference" between Luther and the representatives of the Swiss Reformation, Luther wrote on the table with regard to the Lord's Supper, "This is my body," and said to Zwingli and Oecolampadius, "You have another spirit." That difference of opinion led to the breach between the Lutheran and Reformed branches of the Church, and caused Protestantism to lose much of the ground that might otherwise have been gained. It was a great calamity indeed. But the calamity was due to the fact that Luther (as we believe) was wrong about the Lord's Supper; and it would have been a far greater calamity if being wrong about the Supper he had represented the whole question as a trifling affair. Luther was wrong about the Supper, but not nearly so wrong as he would have been if, being wrong, he had said to his opponents: "Brethren, this matter is a trifle; and it makes really very little difference what a man thinks about the table of the Lord." Such indifferentism would have been far more deadly than all the divisions between the branches of the Church. A Luther who would have compromised with regard to the Lord's Supper never would have said at the Diet of Worms, "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, God help me, Amen." Indifferentism about doctrine makes no heroes of the faith (50-51).

Robert Letham: On Puritanism

Today I finished reading Robert Letham's recently published book The Westminster Assembly: Reading Its Theology in Historical Context. While I didn't agree with all of Letham's conclusions, I was nonetheless greatly helped in better understanding the doctrines I confess and the tradition with which I'm identified. I'm very thankful for his work.

Here is his summary of Puritanism:

The chief point at issue for the Puritans was whether the church has the right to bind consciences with anything other than the declarations of the Bible (18).

David Wayne: On Being Relevant to God

Last year fellow PCA pastor and blogger David Wayne was diagnosed with cancer. Today he posted a reflection on this year's experience. Here's an excerpt:

Most of all, I am grateful that God has put me through a situation that has caused my faith in Him to become real. All these years I have been in ministry and have been on a constant quest to make the gospel relevant to my hearers. I now see that as misguided. The question is not how we can make the gospel relevant to us, but how we can make ourselves relevant to God. In other words, God defines reality and it is our task to conform our lives to reality as He defines it, not "make Him" relevant to us. He is always relevant, but we are often irrelevant to Him.

As eternal matters have been at the forefront of my everyday life this year I have been compelled to begin to get a glimpse of life from God's perspective. I am most grateful for the theology of the cross. For years I had heard about it, but I am beginning to get a wee bit of understanding and experience of it. It's just a taste but the taste is great.

Darryl Hart: On the Two Decalogues

Here. And an excerpt:

So again, to reiterate: if the law is good for the magistrate and it gives him (or her?) guidance about the culture wars, why does it not also give instruction about which religious groups to support and which to forbid? . . .

The folks who condemn two-kingdoms for its dualism (among other things) have a dualistic view of the Decalogue. How integrated is that?

Andrew Webb: On the Observation of Holy Days

Here is an excellent historical theological treatment of the observance of holy days in the Presbyterian and Reformed tradition. Here's an excerpt:

In 1973 many conservative Southern Presbyterians faced with the prospect of the union of the body they belonged to (the PCUS) with the more liberal Northern UPCUSA opted instead to withdraw and form a new theologically conservative Presbyterian Church. This new church, the Presbyterian Church in America, opted not to adopt the liturgically oriented Book of Common Worship of the PCUS, its revised Directory of Worship, or any of the alterations that had been made to the Presbyterian Standards since adoption in 1789. Instead the PCA adopted the 1789 revision of the Westminster Standards and set to work on creating their own Directory of Worship. The non-binding Directory they created – while it is far more liturgical than the original Directory for Publick Worship, and includes sample forms for special occasions – does not contain a single reference to the Church year. In fact at no point in the history of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) has the practice of observing Holy Days been officially authorized by the General Assembly, nor does anything in the Constitution of the Church legitimate the practice. To the contrary, since the constitutional documents of the PCA uphold and endorse the original Puritan concept of the Regulative Principle of Worship as it is set forth in chapter 21.1 of the Westminster Confession of Faith, the practice of observing Holy Days in worship is logically forbidden as no one has ever been able to prove that the practice of their observation was instituted by God in His Word. What is odd in light of this is that very few, if any, members of the PCA view the observance of Holy Days as an exception to the teaching of the Westminster Standards.

So while we can answer clearly why Presbyterians who belong to the PCUSA observe Holy Days, for they changed their doctrinal standards to allow for the practice, one cannot answer that question when it comes to members of other bodies that have not, such as the PCA. Their doctrinal standards clearly do not permit the practice, and yet it would seem that the majority of PCA churches observe Holy Days anyway. Why is that? Well one might be tempted to conclude that it is because the General Assembly has never tackled the subject, but the far more obvious answer is that they observe them because the Church they left observed them and the vast majority of modern evangelical churches around them observe them. In most cases no-one living can remember a time when Holy Days were not observed and most Presbyterian clergymen seem unaware that there was once a time when they were not observed. Even the oldest of PCA saints might be reasonably tempted to conclude that a notion that Holy Days should not be observed represents the thought of a crackpot.

Miscellanies 13: On Confessional Maximalism

The esse of Christian unity is based on a minimal credible (i.e. truthful) confession of faith. But the bene esse of Christian unity is based on the fullness and precision of one's confession of faith. That's why an excerpt from the current case before the PCA's SJC regarding the NWP and Peter Leithart reads:

The only conclusion that a court should reach, given the excellent work product produced by the PNW Study Committee, would be that there is a strong presumption of guilt that some of the views of Leithart are out of accord with some of the fundamentals of the system of doctrine taught in the [Westminster] Standards. This does not mean that Leithart is a heretic. He is not. This does not mean that Leithart is not or whether he is a Christian. He is. This does not necessarily mean that Leithart is outside the broader reformed community. The sole question to be determined is whether Leithart's views place him outside of the Standards, as adopted by the Presbyterian Church in America.

Jason Stellman Reports on the Ruling of the PCA's SJC

In a word, the complaint filed against the Pacific Northwest Presbytery's findings with regard to TE Peter Leithart's doctrinal views was upheld. You can read the whole post and find a link to the official ruling here. Here's an excerpt from the SJC's ruling:

Did PNW err in its handling of the reports from the PNW Study Committee appointed to examine Leithart's fitness to continue as a PCA Teaching Elder?

Yes. The Complaint is sustained, and the case is sent back to PNW with instructions to institute process and appoint a prosecutor to prepare an Indictment of TE Leithart and to conduct the case (BCO 31-2).

Interesting Conversation with a Roman Catholic Writer

In the comments under this post.

By the way, along the way in our discussion I refer to the CCC. That is the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition (1994). If you see the designation CCC 85, the "85" is the paragraph number. Every paragraph in the CCC has a number assigned to it for quick reference.

The Confessional Presbyterian

I recently subscribed to The Confessional Presbyterian and also purchased the four back issues. They are wonderful. I highly recommend them, especially to pastors in the Presbyterian and Reformed tradition. General Editor Chris Coldwell opens the inaugural volume (Vol. 1, 2005) writing:

In a day when it appears that Presbyterians are drifting further and further from the doctrines of the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms, we hope The Confessional Presbyterian journal will provide a forum for inter-denominational discussion among Presbyterians, wishing to defend closer adherence to these old standards of biblical Christianity. To facilitate such an environment we have assembled a fine board of contributing editors from several denominations (see page 184). Our goal, as hopefully reflected in this first issue, is to publish a range of theological, practical and historical material, supportive of the Westminster Standards, while allowing for courteous discussion where disagreements may exist. Our hope is to publish one volume annually (2).

Here's the list of contributing editors from page 184:

Dr. Richard E. Bacon (Amer. RPC)
Dr. W. Gary Crampton (RPCGA)
Dr. J. Ligon Duncan, Ph.D. (PCA)
John T. Dyck (BPC)
Dr. David W. Hall, Ph.D. (PCA)
R. Sherman Isbell (FCSC)
Ray B. Lanning (ARPC)
John R. Muether (OPC)
Thomas G. Reid (RPCNA)
Dr. Frank J. Smith (CRPC)
Wayne Sparkman M.A.R. M.Div. (PCA)
Alan Strange (OPC)
C.N. Willborn, Ph.D. (PCA)

Robert Letham: On the Catholicity of the Reformers

I'm about half way through Robert Letham's recently published book The Westminster Assembly: Reading Its Theology in Historical Context. This is the third book in The Westminster Assembly and the Reformed Faith series edited by Carl Trueman. It is so good! This should be required reading for every officer in the Presbyterian and Reformed tradition. On the catholicity of the divines Letham writes:

All the Reformers, including Calvin, and the later Reformed orthodox operated in the context of their inheritance from the late Middle Ages. To understand them, it is necessary to have a grasp of the scholastic method, and of the history of medieval exegesis. The Assembly's Reformed context establishes its Catholic credentials, for the Reformers were at odds, not with the Catholic tradition, but with its immediate representatives. Evidence abounds from Luther, Calvin, and their contemporaries. This is abundantly demonstrated from the minutes [of the Westminster Assembly], where the records we have show beyond the slightest doubt that every theological question was debated from the foundation of biblical exegesis, in dialogue with the history of exegesis reaching back to the early days of the church. So pervasive is the focus on biblical exegesis that it would be futile here to list the texts on which the debate turned--the evidence is literally overwhelming. However, it was not carried on in isolation; it took place self-consciously as part of the great tradition of the church (96-97, emphasis added).

R.C. Sproul: On the Manhattan Declaration

Here. And an excerpt:

In answer to the question, “R.C., why didn’t you sign the Manhattan Declaration?” I offer the following answer: The Manhattan Declaration confuses common grace and special grace by combining them. While I would march with the bishop of Rome and an Orthodox prelate to resist the slaughter of innocents in the womb, I could never ground that cobelligerency on the assumption that we share a common faith and a unified understanding of the gospel (emphasis added).

D.G. Hart: Defending the Faith

Today I started reading a book that's been on my "to read" list for more than a year, Darryl Hart's biography of J. Gresham Machen entitled Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America. I'm only a chapter into it and I can already tell I'm going to love this book. Here's an excerpt:

Machen was indeed concerned about the dangers that "cultural modernism" posed to traditional faith. But he was even more worried about the "modernism" of American Protestantism and the cultural outlook upon which Protestant reconstructions of Christianity rested. For Machen, the moves by Protestants to "modernize" the faith--and not the efforts of "cultural modernists" to move beyond Christianity--comprised the greatest danger to Christianity. For by refashioning Christianity mainline Protestants hoped to maintain the churches' role as cultural guardian. But in the process, Machen believed, they had confused influence with faithfulness. In fact, he held that theological integrity and cultural authority were inversely related: a theology eager for public influence invariably compromised the Christian faith, while principled theology could at best benefit society indirectly.

Machen's cultural concerns, thus, made him in the 1920s a reluctant ally of secular intellectuals but in the 1930s would cost him the support of fundamentalists. Like Machen, though for different reasons, cultural modernists also bristled under mainstream Protestantism's moral code, rejected its cheery estimate of human nature and the universe, and opposed its bid to Christianize American society. The subtext of Machen's theological critique of Protestant modernism--that the churches had no business meddling in society--was good news to secularists who thought that America's Protestant ethos impeded intellectual and cultural life. Fundamentalists, in contrast, were virtually deaf to Machen's ideas about the relationship between Christianity and culture. To most conservatives throughout the 1920s, Machen was a champion of orthodoxy who had reestablished the theological foundations for Christian civilization in America. By the 1930s, however, his understanding of the church's limited role in public life began to alienate fundamentalists. When Machen's efforts to reform the Presbyterian Church were finally thwarted and he withdrew in 1936 to form a new denomination, his church attracted few fundamentalists. They stayed away at least in part because they, unlike Machen, shared with modernizing Protestants the belief that Christian values constituted the bedrock of American society (8-9, emphasis added).

Nick Batzig: More on the Manhattan Declaration

This is the most thorough analysis of the debate over the merit of signing the MD I've seen.

Michael Horton: On the Manhattan Declaration

At the White Horse Inn Blog. And an excerpt:

When we confuse the law and the gospel, there is inevitably a confusion of Christ and culture, and there is considerable evidence in Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and evangelical histories to demonstrate the real dangers of this confusion. In this otherwise helpful declaration, the confusion is evident once more. Alongside the theological claims that witness to the dignity of all people created in God’s image, Christianity seems to be defended as a major stake-holder in Western culture and society. By tending to confuse the gospel with the law, special revelation with general revelation, and Christianity with Western civilization, the document actually undermines its own objective—namely, to defend the dignity of human life as a universal moral imperative. Not only Christians, but non-Christians, are recipients of this general revelation.

The church has a responsibility to proclaim the gospel of free justification in Christ and to witness to God’s universal rights over humanity in his law. This law is sufficient to arraign us all before God’s court, pronouncing every one of us guilty for failing to love God and our neighbor, and it remains the rule for all duties and responsibilities that we have to contribute to the flourishing of our culture and the good of our neighbors. Yet the gospel itself is the testimony to God’s act of redemption in Jesus Christ, which delivers us from guilt, condemnation, and the tyranny of sin. The commands of the law, both natural and clarified in Scripture, ring in the conscience of everyone, but the gospel is the only “power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes…” (Romans 1:16).

If we undermine the universal moral imperative of God's law, we also undermine the basis of God's general condemnation and therefore the power of the Gospel to save. In terms of Romans 1, the wrath of God against all men due to their lawlessness must be true before the righteousness of God apart from the Law can be revealed as powerful. The Law must condemn before the Gospel can save.