Because Jesus Christ has only one church, our primary identity as a denomination must be catholic. We are but a member of His body, a branch of the vine. Though the Church is divided by doctrine, conflict, geography, and custom, we have a unity in Christ by the Holy Spirit with God as our Father that cannot be broken. We confess this unity by holding to the creeds of the Church, which express the essentials of the Christian faith—in common with all Christians and communions.

But as a particular communion of this historic and global Church, it is right that we are a distinctly Reformed Church which confesses what we together believe the Scriptures teach about other matters necessary to the health and long-term fidelity of the church and to a particular common order and partnership.

This is why AMR’s theological vision for our denomination affirms our commitment to our confessionally Reformed identity:

Because Christ the Prophet directs his Church by providing a rule of faith and love, summarized in the Westminster Standards,

• We gratefully receive these standards as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures, and we eagerly seek to bring the riches of our entire Reformed tradition into engagement with whatever new opportunities our moment may bring. Confident in these convictions, we also believe “there are truths and forms with respect to which men of good character and principles may differ,” requiring us to exercise mutual forbearance.
• Sincerely subscribing to the “fundamentals of this system of doctrine,” we oppose terms of our communion that are either too lax, requiring only “substance subscription,” or too narrow, requiring “strict subscription.”

Gratefully Confessional

Our Reformed identity sets us apart from our evangelical brothers and sisters in other Protestant denominations, as well as our more distant brothers and sisters in other major branches of the Church. This distinct identity is established and maintained confessionally through the Westminster Standards, which lead us to look both backwards and forwards.

In looking backwards to receive our confession from those who have come before us, we avoid having to rediscover and re-articulate a faithful understanding of Scripture in each generation. This fits with the practice of the saints in both the Old and New Testaments who formulated summaries of the faith to pass on to each generation (Psalm 145:4; Jude 3). We believe our commitment to the Standards in the PCA is vital to our ongoing fidelity, unity, and witness.

Employing Our Confession

But we do not only look backwards at the gift we have been given by our predecessors. We must also look around and ahead of us as new circumstances and opportunities raise new questions, concerns, and challenges to the Church’s fidelity and witness.

AMR seeks to promote a denominational culture in which we engage the present and future with humility and confidence, employing the Reformed system of doctrine as a tool to address issues that the Divines did not directly address because they were assumed or not imagined. Our understanding of Scripture, expressed by our system of doctrine, enables us to address such matters in a way that can preserve the Church and bolster our witness. AMR longs to see our denomination lead the way in deep theological engagement with the global concerns of the present and future, rather than primarily rehashing minor but long-running disagreements within our tiny circles.

This engagement, if it is to be mature and thoroughly biblical, will require us to be rooted in the entire Reformed Tradition, not just the aspects that pertain to the Westminster Standards, as we also learn with and retrieve from the best of the entire Christian communion and tradition.

Subscribing to Our Confession

The PCA was established to be, and has remained throughout its history, essentially Reformed. We are a church submitted to the Westminster Standards, which publicly represent the mind of our church as to what the Scriptures teach, while admitting officers with some doctrinal differences not essential to the integrity of the Reformed system. This “good faith” approach to confessionalism and subscription provides clarity to insiders and outsiders, unity as a communion, guardrails to protect our long-term fidelity, and a resource for evangelism and teaching.

Many of our brothers are not content with or are concerned about the state of confessional subscription in the PCA. They worry that exceptions are not rare, stated differences appear driven by cultural rather than theological concerns, and ministers who state no differences are treated with suspicion. As a result, they sometimes speak as if true confessionalism requires strict subscription from officers, where no exceptions are granted. Or, at least, if exceptions are granted, they may not be taught.

Meanwhile, others, perhaps worrying that our Confession is being put on equal footing with Scripture, and maybe also finding Westminster unhelpful for modern ministry, are drawn outside our tradition for their pastoral and theological guidance. As a result, they seem to treat our Standards casually, with mere formality, or with lip service, reducing subscription to bare evangelical doctrines.

AMR seeks to promote a culture in our denomination in which candidates must deeply and knowledgeably engage with our Standards, whether they state differences or not, so that each man has a firm scriptural basis for his convictions. Furthermore, we do not support doctrinal minimalism or attempts to lower the bar of subscription by officers to mere evangelical or creedal doctrines. For if we are to be a distinctly Reformed denomination, shaped by, for example, a high view of Scripture’s truthfulness, authority, and sufficiency, the regulative principle of worship, God’s sovereignty, the doctrines of grace, infant baptism, real presence, the liberty of conscience, the ordinary means of grace, the ongoing importance of the practice of the Christian Sabbath, the three uses of the Law, covenantalism, the “grace restores nature” paradigm, and more, then these essentials of the Reformed system must be affirmed by our elders and shape our teaching and practice.

But precisely because we are Reformed, we believe that Scripture is the only rule of faith and practice (WCF 31.3, BCO 39-3) and that all creeds and confessions (including the Westminster Standards) are fallible. To allow the Church to be renewed and refined by Scripture, a functional path toward reform is necessary. The standard for acceptance into the ministry must be the “fundamentals” of the Reformed system as determined by a local presbytery, and not every article the Westminster Standards teach (BCO 21-4.f-g). By granting exceptions on matters not hostile to the integrity of the Reformed system, the PCA states publicly that, while the Westminster Standards are the standard expositions of the teaching of Scripture in relation to both faith and practice (BCO 29-1), our church is open to reform on those particular matters judged not fundamental to the system because there may be a legitimate biblical basis for a different view.

For this same reason, presbyteries should continue the practice of allowing ministers to teach their exceptions. Ministers can do this while also showing respect to the standard teaching of the PCA by faithfully articulating the Westminster position accurately alongside their own and by always being open to correction. All attempts at reform must seek to bring change through persuasion and be rooted in careful, theological interpretation of Scripture, not driven by cultural trends.

This confessional approach has enabled the PCA to avoid division over tertiary concerns and constant disputes over minor matters and applications within our theological tradition while remaining united and guarded against doctrinal drift. It is this robust yet flexible confessionalism to which AMR is committed.

Forbearance Amidst Confessional Differences

We recognize that many wish the PCA to have every theological position settled once and for all. But disagreement over some minor matters or applications will likely always remain, even amongst the godliest society, until Christ returns.

We know that forbidding differences appeals to many who believe this would permanently safeguard us against liberal drift. But as Ian Hamilton has said after reflecting on the liberal drift of the Church of Scotland from 1733–1833, “You would be out of your tiny mind if you think a church’s orthodoxy can be guaranteed by its professed confessional standards… How did the church drift so quickly? It was pride. The moment you think yourself to be something in the eyes of God, you become nothing.” We can only prevent doctrinal compromise by God’s grace through the maintenance of godly character and faithful piety within the robust confessional approach described above.

Amidst our ongoing disagreements, fruitful theological dialogue and partnership in mission require the humility, gentleness, and charity of mutual forbearance. This, as our BCO reminds us, is our duty toward each other (BCO, Preliminary Principle 5).

Conclusion

The PCA has been uniquely blessed by God among Reformed denominations in America. In part, this has been due to our holding together the impulses toward purity and reform in healthy tension. AMR wants to see the PCA continue as a true, consistent, confessionally Reformed communion, one that both avoids theological drift into broad Evangelicalism or liberal compromise and remains open to correction from Scripture as it generatively engages in the questions of our time.

To that end, we believe Christ the Prophet will continue to direct us in faith and in love.

Derek grew up in San Diego, CA and Austin, TX. In 2005, he married Sally, and they have four children. He has served as a pastor at Trinity Church (PCA) in Winston-Salem, NC since 2012. He received a B.A. in philosophy from Wake Forest University (’04), an M.Div. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (’07), and a Th.M. from Duke Divinity School (’12).