Please refer to block 5 on the Comparison Chart (https://www.hebronchurchpittsburgh.org/wp-content/uploads/Denominational-Comparison.pdf) for this week’s consideration. The question is in regard to the PCUSA’s stance on Scripture as the ONLY authority on matters of faith and practice (i.e. Sola Scriptura). The block in the chart lists the PCUSA’s stance as a ‘Yes and No’. How can this be?
The answer is based in the fundamental nature of the denomination’s ideology, and relates to the issue in block 3 regarding essential tenets of the faith. In refusing to articulate essential tenets of the faith, the PCUSA in effect denies that there are tenets of the faith that are essential. In their view, Scripture is a ‘guide’, as the confessions to which they subscribe are only ‘guides’. The actual essential tenet of their ideology is that there is no absolute authority, only multiple relative authorities or influences! This concept is foreign to us at Hebron, and many have been struggling to find the doctrinal focus of our incompatibility with the PCUSA. This incompatibility is centered on this issue of ‘authority’.
The following is a quote from an article on ‘Liberal Theology’ (do not confuse this with liberal politics) which you can access here: https://clearlyreformed.org/what-is-liberal-theology.
“Fundamentally [liberal theology] is the idea of a genuine Christianity not based on external authority [i.e. Holy Scripture]. Liberal theology seeks to reinterpret the symbols of Christianity in a way that creates a progressive religious alternative to atheistic rationalism and to theologies based on external authority [i.e. based on Holy Scripture].”
The article goes on to say, “Specifically, liberal theology is defined by its openness to the verdicts of modern intellectual inquiry, especially the natural and social sciences; its commitment to the authority of individual reason and experience; its conception of Christianity as an ethical way of life; its favoring of moral concepts of atonement; and its commitment to make Christianity credible and socially relevant to modern people.”
The items in this second paragraph of the above quote are influences that compete with Scripture for authority, but the whole point of it is to stand over and against the absolute authority of Scripture. This is not a small issue or a fine point of distinction, but actually sets itself apart from orthodox Biblical Christianity. See some examples of the consequences of this ideology in the Notes at the end of the Comparison Chart.
More next week.
by Dave Mulock