CONFESSIONAL SUBSCRIPTION
Recently on an internet list someone proposed this position relating to confessional subscription:
> Parnell,
>
> To avoid going into the details, let's simply
grant the truth of the three
> reasons you list below. Does that keep you from ordinary church
membership?
> In most Reformed churches, an ordinary member doesn't have to subscribe to
> the confessional standards or endorse the actions of the presbytery. This
is
> how it should be. The church ought not, for example, to require more from
an
> applicant for church membership than a credible profession of faith,
> including a life free from scandal, so long as the brother does not bring
> dissention into the church (Rom 14:1).
>
I responded as follows:
Ben, I think we have a different view of communicant membership. Catechism must
precede communion. (I would refer you to Dr. Lee's writings, for example, on
that topic, such as his examination of Proverbs 22:6)
And what is that catechism to consist of? training in the Biblical confessional
standards of the Church (ie, the Biblical doctrines
outlined in the original Westminster Standards)
And is that catechism hopefully leading to communicant membership merely
intended to instruct, or is it done with the view that the person catechized
should agree with what they have been catechized in? the latter
So to be eligible for communicant membership, one must not only profess Christ
as one's personal Lord and Savior, one must also profess adherence to the
Biblical confessional standards (and that then allows proper self-examination
for communion). For instance, if one does not adhere to a Sabbatarian
view of the Lord's Day, then one will not properly engage in self-examination
before communion with respect to Sabbath observance. Of if one does not adhere
to the RPW, then one will not properly engage in
self-examination relating to will-worship.
All communicant members should be full subscriptionists
to the confessional standards, or else they are not yet ready for communicant
membership. The difference in requirement between church officers and communicant
members is a matter of degree of knowledge, but not kind of subscription.
Clearly ministers should be required to know more about the details of and
arguments for the confessional standards than just communicant members. But
both should be full subscriptionists. In principle,
one who agrees with the Shorter Catechism should be in agreement with the WCF,
because the WCF simply fleshes out in more detail what the Bible interpreted by
the Shorter Catechism implies.
The Church is to be the pillar of truth in the world (I Timothy
- J. Parnell McCarter
> FPCS
>
>