There currently are two competing views of church unity within our Presbyterian denominations. J. Gresham Machen discusses both in his final chapter of Christianity and Liberalism. The Liberal view of church unity is “at best a forced union of machinery and tyrannical committees” in which the church seeks to impose uniformity regarding “human opinions about the social problems of the hour.” This includes an unwillingness to tolerate different racial, national, economic, and other extra-confessional views. So the Liberal uses ecclesiastical “machinery” (e.g., committees, courts) to bind others’ consciences (hence, a “forced union”) in areas that are outside the church’s confession and so outside its jurisdiction (i.e., “human opinions”). In his discussion of the Liberal view, Machen refers to the “angry passions of 1861” and alludes to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” as an example. For Machen, and for the Southern Presbyterians from whom he sprung, the Northern Presbyterian church, via the Gardiner Spring resolutions, had wrongly promoted a proto-Liberal (and, therefore, anti-Christian) view of unity by practically requiring its churches to support the Lincoln administration as a condition of Christian fellowship. The doctrinal issue was not whether the Lincoln administration was right or wrong, but whether the church has the authority to impose conditions of church office and Christian fellowship beyond the subordinate standards to which church officers bind themselves. The Liberal answer was that the church indeed has such authority. The Christian answer was that the church cannot do so because it would violate the Christian’s liberty of conscience, a violation that Paul regards as damnable in Galatians.
R.L. Dabney, in his 1869 article “The New State-Church,” also addresses this anti-Christian view of church unity. He warns against “the craving of politics to use religion as a tool.” The Northern Church erred by seeking “to wield its spiritual power in forcing upon the liberty of God’s people a political opinion.” These proto-Liberals argued that those who opposed their extra-confessional opinions were violating the unity and peace of the Church, so that “some short-sighted good people” were “hoodwinked by the plea of Christian union.” Yet this union is not true Christian unity, but an attempt to create an ecclesiastical body that is “irresistible as a political faction.” And even where there is no organic union between denominations (such as between Presbyterians and Baptists), they are still “radical to the core” and are more united by their common political and social views than they are divided by their doctrinal differences. So Northern Presbyterians and Northern Baptists were more willing to embrace each other in Christian fellowship than either was to embrace Southern Presbyterians in fellowship because, while the Southern Presbyterians confessed the same doctrine as the Northern Presbyterians, they did not hold to the same extra-confessional social and political views. This situation betrayed that, for proto-Liberal Northern Presbyterians, the extra-confessional beliefs, functioning as a “shadow confession,” were more important than the subordinate standards themselves. The Northern Church disciplined those who did not agree with this “shadow confession” so that there were “ecclesiastical penalties for political differences”; Dabney identifies this as the first stage of religious persecution.
The divide between the Liberal and Christian conceptions of church unity continued growing until Machen’s day, and it appeared in different approaches to racial issues, among other things. Machen supported racial segregation in housing at Princeton Seminary, and B.B. Warfield opposed it. But since both men held to a Christian view of church unity, they acknowledged each other as faithful believers. For both men, racial integration was not part of the church’s confession, and, therefore, it was not a condition of Christian fellowship or church office. Each man was free to defend his view of the matter without violating the other’s liberty of conscience or impeding the other’s faith. This was not the view, however, of Liberal champion Harry Emerson Fosdick, who held racial egalitarianism to be essential to Christianity and whose work directly influenced Martin Luther King, Jr. Indeed, in 1958 King wrote to Fosdick, “lf I were called upon to select the greatest preacher of this century, I would choose your name. If I were called upon to select the foremost prophets of our generation, I would choose you to head the list. If I were called upon to select the Christian saints of our day, again I would have to place you on the list.” Fosdick, in his Guide to Understanding the Bible, argues that the New Testament asserts an “ideal equality” in race, gender, and socio-economic status. Regarding race, he holds that New Testament Christianity overcame the racialism of the Old Testament: “To be sure, the Christian scriptures retain unmistakable evidence of the struggle in which the early church was involved in thus breaking free from Jewish particularism and racialism.” He writes,
The New Testament as a whole represents a movement which had broken away from its original moorings in Judaism and had taken to the open sea with no restrictions of race or nation. "God so loved the world" (John 3:16.) was the essence of its gospel; "Whosoever believeth" (Ibid.) represented the inclusiveness of its fellowship; "There can be neither Jew nor Greek" (Galatians 3:28.) revealed its transcendence of racial lines; and its ultimate ideal was a kingdom of souls "of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation." (Revelation 5:9.) Such is the undisputed character of the New Testament. In its eyes God is one and mankind is one, and there are neither boundaries restricting moral obligation to a special sector of the field nor preferences of race and nation making duty to one relatively more important than to another. From the tribal ethic of the Bible’s beginning to this world-wide gospel and this universal range of moral obligation, the Scriptures record one of the most momentous developments of thought and life in all history.
For Fosdick, then, the historic Christian position of the ordo amoris is a feature of Old Testament religion, not New Testament Christianity. Of course, Fosdick’s egalitarianism is itself a violation of the Westminster Standards and must be prohibited by Presbyterian churches. So in 1964, E.J. Young, addressing racial egalitarianism, wrote, “There is danger of embracing the modern political doctrine of egalitarianism, a doctrine which is thoroughly unscriptural.” Yet the issue is not only that the Liberal asserts a false egalitarian doctrine (which is a sin against “the light of nature”), but that the Liberal seeks to impose an extra-confessional “political doctrine” on officers and members. So set aside for now the many theological errors in Fosdick’s statement. Fosdick’s position, the Liberal position, is that the Church has the authority to impose on its members the modern doctrine of racial egalitarianism, along with its political and social consequences, as a (functional) article of the Christian confession and so as a condition of Christian fellowship. Such is the unity of the Liberal church.
The nature of true Christian unity already appears by way of contrast in the above paragraphs, but it may help to assert the doctrine positively. True Christian unity, the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, is defined by a commitment to the historic Christian confession, which has a stable, unchanging meaning and which is available for public examination. Likewise, true Christian unity within any denomination is defined by a commitment to the confessional documents which officers and/or members vowed to uphold. Beyond this the church may not go, no matter how much we may disagree (even publicly) on other issues. We may disagree about sports. We may disagree about politics. We may disagree about economic policy. We may disagree about social organization. We may disagree about educational policy. But if we affirm the historic Christian confession, we must embrace each other as brothers. And if we affirm our denomination’s confessional documents that we swore to uphold, we must embrace each other as brothers. Such unity, unlike Liberal unity, does not tyrannically demand uniformity, as though we belong to a cult. Rather, true Christian unity allows for latitude and liberty outside our public confession while requiring strict conformity within it. Simple honesty requires it. The church cannot threaten to punish officers or members who do not agree with a “shadow confession” that they never swore to uphold; we can only be held responsible for abiding by the standards that we did swear to uphold. Let our yes be yes and our no be no. Anything more is from the evil one.
The point of this article will be clear to those who have been paying attention to recent events in our American Protestant churches. Several of us have been accused of disturbing the unity and peace of the church because we do not submit to doctrines that are outside our church’s confession. But who is actually disturbing the peace and unity of the church? There is a simple way to determine the answer. Which group is willing to worship with the opposing group, regardless of these disagreements, as long as we affirm our historic Christian confession? For my part, I have never made my views on politics or race relations a condition of Christian fellowship; indeed, other than some biblical foundations I established in a series of articles from 2022 (and preached with modification in 2024), I have never even preached or taught on the subject within the church. This Sunday and every Sunday I would be happy to worship and fellowship with anyone who affirms the basic Christian confession, even if he disagrees with me on extra-confessional issues, and I would be glad to serve as an officer with anyone who upholds the Westminster Standards, even if he thinks I am wrong about any number of issues outside those Standards. Yet, despite our adherence to the ecumenical creeds (and, for many of us, the Westminster Standards), there are professing Christian Protestants who will not embrace us as brothers and who refuse to worship and fellowship with us because we do not agree with their modern political and social dogmas. Thus, even in our supposedly confessional churches, Liberalism has prevailed, and extra-confessional (and usually tacit) standards are the new rules that bind our consciences.
So the answer to the question, “Who is actually disturbing the peace and unity of the church?” will depend on your view of unity. If you affirm the Liberal view, then I confess that we are guilty of the most egregious disunity imaginable because we will not submit our consciences to extra-confessional and extra-biblical dogmas. But if you affirm the Christian view, then our opponents, by refusing to worship and fellowship with us and by denying us basic Christian charity despite our commitment to historic Christianity (the Christianity of Machen, Dabney, Hodge, the Westminster Divines, and millions more), are tearing apart Christ’s Bride for the sake of worldly gain.
