Christian Literature & Book Reviews
Covenantal Worship: Reconsidering the Puritan Regulative Principle
By R. J. Gore, Jr.
R. J.. Gore, Jr. undertook a reevaluation of the regulative principle as part of his doctoral dissertation at Westminster Theological Seminary and has publshed the fruits of his research in Covenantal Worship through which he demonstrates the failings of the regulative principle as a basis for guiding the worship of the Church. In particular, he sees the principle best understood as a consequence of the battles Puritans waged battles both with Catholicism and the established Anglican Church and not as a commendable course of action independant of those circumstances.
Gore begins the book by placing the regualative principle within the context of the post-Reformation period and particularly the battles between Anglicans and Puritans for the direction of the Christian faith in England. Yet even in the Westminster standards, we see a certain amount of "wiggle room" develop as various compromises were needed to bring more high church Scottish Presbyterians into agreement with English Puritans on key issues. Disputes over the use of clerical garb, the frequency of the Lord's Supper, the practice of godparents, and the use of a formal liturgy were all points of contention and the author demonstrates how the words of the instructions for worship were designed to allow freedom of conscience on the issues that could not be agreed upon.
In Covenantal Worship, R. J. Gore has given us a strong case for the Reforned faith to reconsider the regulative principle that has governed their worship for centuries (in theory if not in practice). Unlike many attempts in the past, this was not merely a hatchet job on past beliefs to make way for new ideas. Gore admires the Puritans' respect for the sovereignty of God but believes in the regulative principle that it has been taken to an extreme at the expense of other truths. Rather than a deconstruction of existing beliefs, he proposes an alternative path that he holds to be more in harmony with true Reformed principles. Whether his will prevail among his Reformed brethren or be ignored will play out in the future, but his effort in framing general outlines for worship in the Reformed tradition is definitely worth a long look.
Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices
By Frank Viola & George Barna
The phenomenon of restorationism (a church body asserting its intentions to recreate the New Testament Church) is not a new one to American Evangelicalism. Generally initiated by those who have little or no understanding of the culture, history, and religious practices of those they wish to emulate, the temptation of a do-it-yourself ecclesiology (with the New Testament as their alleged guide) is irresistible for those feeling alienated by existing church practices.
The telltale signature of restorationist movements is to proclaim existing ecclesial structures to be hopelessly out of step with true Christianity. After all, if the Church needs to be restored, then one would assume something had gone terribly wrong else the entire project of restoration would be a colossal waste of time. Unlike reform movements, whose primary motivation is to pressure the existing Church to renew itself from within, the strategy for restorationists is to wipe the slate clean and imagine the Church could be restarted anew. The inevitable result is the affirmation of their own personal beliefs and practices covered by the authority of eisegetic interpretations of Scriptural passages devoid of any context apart from their own.
The latest installment of this characteristically American enterprise is now enshrined in Frank Viola and George Barna's Pagan Christianity?. Seeking to justify their own peculiarly postmodern American manifestation of what they believe to be "New Testament Christianity", they combine their own prejudices with such a staggering display of historical ignorance, that any informed reader is left shaking their heads at their garbled understanding of the Church's past. In their attacks on anything that smells of structure or authority, one can detect a sense of glee as they engage in their ill-informed attempts at iconoclasm.
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