John Suk

I've always thought that a confession, in its plain English sense, was something that lived in your heart and thus needed to find expression on your tongue. Our confessions--except, perhaps for short stretches, like LD1, don't do that. So they fail as expressions of piety, and are good only for defining orthodoxy and bounderies. That means that their only real function is coercive. I really wish we could put them into the category of "even more important to our tradition than Berkhof's Systematic Theology." Honor them, as DeMoor says. But the only official confession (not talking creeds here, though getting those down to the Apostle's would save us making a whole bunch of ancient Greek metaphysical claims  that border on hilarious, such as God has "substance") we really need anymore, as far as I can tell, is the one scripture suggests in Romans 10:9: Jesus is Lord.

Of course, that isn't practical, some will say. People will leave the church. They'll make threats. They'll make judgements. There will be schism. All probably true if a surprising majority of synod decided to get rid of that irksom Form of Subscription.  Remember, after all, that the only real function these confessions have today is . . . coercion. We're in a pickle.

Sort of reminds me of how some "Old First" churches plateau at a certain level, and change becomes impossible with its present membership because too many people have a stake--in the organ, or the pews, or a coffee break program that is only working for retired women, or whatever. So some members leave and start a new church where anything goes, and it flourishes. You know, unless a seed dies . . . Well, as a confessional church we're stuck with Old First's great memories and all of its problems, too. Meanwhile, I fear our plateau days are past, and we're in slow decline. Change has become impossible, unless it is change that sanctifies the language of modern commerce, such as missions "Enterprize Zones." That's almost blasphemous! 

Sure, some traditional Reformed congregations are flourishing (anyone not on Keller's bandwagon out there?). Many more are not. But if you look around, there are at least a few churches of all stripes (including more than a few liberal ones) flourishing somewhere (especially Mormon ones, interestingly enough--do we want to get on that bandwagon?). 

No, I fear we're stuck. We'll muddle on. The confessions will never live again in the CRC they way they did when they were written. We'll just keep on pretending, though, that they might. And we'll keep using them as a means of last resort to make people sit up straight and behave.