A Response to Kevin DeYoung
In his recent Themelios article, Kevin DeYoung speaks of “several responses” to his earlier 2024 article, but he only alludes to them without citations or links. (Here is a prior article of mine that relates to the subject.) I intend this article to complement James Baird’s recent response to DeYoung, which I commend to readers.
DeYoung summarizes his argument in the article’s abstract: “My contention is that Reformed political thought has not been static, and, in fact, that American Presbyterianism saw itself as correcting elements of the earlier tradition.” The first sentence is accurate that “Reformed political thought has not been static,” particularly when one considers American Reformed political thought. However, the word in question in DeYoung’s argument is “correcting.” Did American Presbyterians think they were “correcting” earlier Reformed political theology? The better term here is “adapting,” as the American Presbyterians adapted the 1646 Westminster Confession to the American context. This avoids DeYoung’s conclusion that the 1788 Confession contradicts the 1646 Confession. There are at least two reasons why this is a better understanding of what happened in 1788.
First, the 1788 revisions to the Confession represent a consensus response to the American context, which included allegations that Presbyterians were seeking a national establishment.
American civil government was in flux at the time that the American revisions to the Westminster Confession were made in 1788. Many states had disestablished their churches or were in the process of doing so. There were American Presbyterians on both sides of the debates, such as the debate over whether Virginia in the 1780s should embrace complete disestablishment or move to a general establishment. The Hanover Presbytery initially supported Patrick Henry’s general establishment bill but then changed its position in support of disestablishment. South Carolina, a state that Presbyterians dominated, even enacted a general establishment from 1778 to 1790.
Things were changing, and American Presbyterians were not unified in their view of civil government’s relationship to Christianity. (Michael Lynch has noted that there was even disagreement among the seventeenth-century English and Scottish Presbyterians as to what constitutes in sacris, that is, in what “sacred matters” the magistrate may be involved.) American Presbyterians knew chapters 23 and 30 of the 1646 Confession were not suitable for the American context, so they did not require subscription to these chapters in the 1729 Adopting Act. But there was not much discussion as to what should replace those chapters. Even the 1788 Synod’s minutes regarding revisions do not provide much explanation as to the change. Notably, the colonial church in 1729 exempted themselves from the Confession’s chapters on the magistrate but made no corresponding exceptions in the larger catechism.
However, we do know one thing: American Presbyterians were concerned about the charge that they wanted to form a Presbyterian establishment. American Presbyterians knew such an establishment was not possible because of their minority status in every colony turned state, so they wrestled with their relation to civil government in early America. Yet there were numerous allegations that the American Presbyterians wanted to set up a form of establishment that was intolerant of other Protestant denominations. In April 1785, James Madison wrote that “all the Clergy” in Virginia were against Henry’s general establishment bill, “except the Presbyterian who seem as ready to set up the establishment, which is to take them in as they were to pull down that which shut them out. I do not know a more shameful contrast than might be formed between their Memorials on the latter & former occasion.”[1]
Thomas Jefferson wrote in March 1820 that the Presbyterian clergy “are violent, ambitious of power, and intolerant in politics as in religion and want nothing but license from the laws to kindle again the fires of their leader John Knox, and to give us a 2d blast from his trumpet.”[2] That was in response to the attacks from Presbyterians (such as Rev. John Holt Rice) on Thomas Cooper (1759–1839), the rationalist who had been elected as president of the University of Virginia. Cooper resigned because of the attacks, and he later became president of the College of South Carolina. Yet in 1834, Cooper wrote of the Presbyterians: “Yet these are the men who constitute the most numerous, the most wealthy, the most arrogant class of priests in these United States…whose known and avowed design it is to make Presbyterianism the religion of this country by law established—to make themselves independent of their congregations—and to erect a church paid by TYTHES, exacted from the people!”[3]
Jefferson’s and Cooper’s allegations came well after 1788, showing the Presbyterian Church was unable to shed the accusations of desiring an establishment. However, Madison’s allegations show that the same criticism was around in 1785, prior to the 1788 revisions. Such criticisms were known to the Synod of New York and Philadelphia, which in 1783 issued a statement to calm the fears of Christians from other denominations:
“It having been represented to Synod, that the Presbyterian Church suffers greatly, in the opinion of other denominations, from an apprehension, that they hold intolerant principles. –– The Synod do solemnly & publicly declare, that they ever have, & still do renounce and abhor the principles of intolerance; & we do believe that every peaceable member of civil society ought to be protected in the full & free exercise of their religion.”[4]
The Synod in 1783 wanted to counter the allegations from other denominations that Presbyterians were “intolerant” of other Protestants. This provides the background to the 1788 changes. DeYoung even quoted Ashbel Green regarding this very concern, as Green said in response to the 1788 revisions, “You see, then, how unfounded and senseless has been the cry, that the Presbyterian Church has been seeking governmental patronage. This can never be done, but in open violation of an established principle of the standards of that Church.”[5]
The allegations of “intolerance” and “government patronage” imply that some American Presbyterians were seeking to establish the Presbyterian Church, or at least that is how other Protestants were perceiving things. This might have been exaggerated, but there was surely a basis to such a claim because of the 1646 Westminster Confession, the history of Scotland, and the existence of Covenanters in America (who were not part of the mainline American Presbyterian Church).
The 1788 revisions did away with a hard establishment of the Presbyterian Church in the American context. However, this did not change the magistrate’s relationship to the Christian religion. This is seen in that the same Ashbel Green just five years later in 1793 signed a letter with other ministers that petitioned the Pennsylvania legislature for “the suppression of vice and immorality,” calling for “some effectual provision for the orderly and religious observation of the Lord’s day; for the prevention and punishment of the profanation of the name of God, and every species of impious imprecation.” Green rejected “governmental patronage” for the Presbyterian Church, but he still called for the magistrate to punish Sabbath-breaking and blasphemy. This is consistent with the views of John Witherspoon. And it supports the conclusion that 1788 revisions were an adaptation of the 1646 Confession for the American context. The changes were pragmatic and allowed flexibility for the various practices of the states at the time (some of which still had establishments).
Second, the American Presbyterians left almost the entire Westminster Larger Catechism intact, which is evidence of adaptation and not a “correction” of the Standards.
This is a major problem for DeYoung’s thesis. It is certainly true that the American Presbyterian Church sought to remove some of the 1646 Confession’s teaching, such as that the magistrate may call synods. However, the Westminster Larger Catechism (1647) is a detailed system of theology. If one were to seek to make a major “correction” to the Standards, then the Larger Catechism should have been revised and not just the Confession. Therefore, if DeYoung is correct that the American Presbyterians intended to “correct” the Standards on politics and the duties of the magistrate, then we would expect to see significant changes to the Larger Catechism. But since the Larger Catechism was not significantly changed, DeYoung’s conclusion is incorrect.
As it stands, the Synod in 1788 left the Shorter Catechism untouched and only removed one clause in the entire Larger Catechism—the sin of “tolerating a false religion” under the Second Commandment (WLC 109). DeYoung cited Ashbel Green’s recounting of this one change to the 1788 Larger Catechism, as Green explained how Rev. Jacob Ker called attention to WLC 109 and the sin of “tolerating a false religion.” Green noted that Ker’s motion was carried “without debate,” and prior to Ker’s motion, “the members of the adopting Synod were just going to take the final vote on the catechisms of the Church, without alteration.”[6]
This does not sound like the Synod had given much thought as to how the Westminster Larger Catechism related to the civil government and WCF 23. How was there no debate on Ker’s motion? This is even more surprising when we consider that when the Larger Catechism covers the Ten Commandments, there are corresponding questions on the duties and sins under each commandment. Thus, while WLC 109 prohibits the sin of “tolerating a false religion” (removed in 1788), WLC 108 correspondingly lists the duty of “removing…all monuments of idolatry” (which 1788 kept intact). WLC 99 explains that this is even a “rule” for “the right understanding of the Ten Commandments,” as, “where a duty is commanded, the contrary sin is forbidden.”
To make this clear, WLC 108 says a duty under the Second Commandment is “the disapproving, detesting, opposing, all false worship; and, according to each one’s place and calling, removing it, and all monuments of idolatry.” When it says, “each one’s place and calling,” the Westminster Assembly certainly included the calling of the civil magistrate. This duty corresponds to the sin of “tolerating a false religion” (WLC 109), as the magistrate is therefore to “oppos[e] all false worship” and “remov[e] all monuments of idolatry” (WLC 108).
The 1788 Synod left intact everything in the WLC related to authorities under the Fifth Commandment, which includes the magistrate—as the “commonwealth” holds superior authority over citizens (WLC 124). As a superior, the following is “required” of the magistrate toward citizens: “to instruct, counsel, and admonish them; countenancing, commending, and rewarding such as do well; and discountenancing, reproving, and chastising such as do ill; protecting, and providing for them all things necessary for soul and body” (WLC 129). This provides the context for WLC 108 and 109.
Now DeYoung could respond that it was an error on the part of the Synod to leave all this in, including WLC 108. However, the text was left in, and that is what we still subscribe to today as Presbyterian ministers. Moreover, the 1788 Synod also left WLC 191 intact, which says that when we pray “Thy kingdom come” in the Lord’s Prayer:
“[W]e pray, that the kingdom of sin and Satan may be destroyed, the gospel propagated throughout the world, the Jews called, the fullness of the Gentiles brought in; the church furnished with all gospel officers and ordinances, purged from corruption, countenanced and maintained by the civil magistrate.”
The language of the church being “countenanced and maintained” by the magistrate is perfectly in line with the 1646 Confession. DeYoung recognized this in a follow-up comment on X, where he said, “Given Green’s description of how the LC was revised at the last minute, and his reference to the ‘curse’ of any church-state connection, I suspect they simply overlooked 191. Ministers should consider taking an exception to ‘maintained.’”
So, DeYoung’s explanation for WLC 191 is that the Synod “overlooked” WLC 191. Would he say the Synod also overlook WLC 108 regarding the duty to “oppos[e] all false worship” and “remov[e] all monuments of idolatry”? Did the Synod overlook the entire Larger Catechism? This seems implausible. The alternative, more plausible explanation is that DeYoung is misreading the 1788 Confession and WLC 191 is perfectly compatible with the American WCF revisions (and thus it is him who should “consider” seeking an “exception” to WLC 191).
We should also note that the structure of the law is still intact in the 1788 Confession, including the teaching that the “general equity” of the Mosaic judicial/civil law obliges modern nations (WCF 19.4). This is not limited to the second table of the law but includes the general equity of first table laws related to the worship of God (thus including blasphemy and Sabbath violations).
Further, the entire moral and political framework of the 1647 Larger Catechism is still intact in the 1788 Larger Catechism, which covers covenant theology, the role of the law, and the Sabbath. The 1788 Larger Catechism still affirms that “The moral law is summarily comprehended in the Ten Commandments” (WLC 98). The Westminster divines who drafted the 1647 Larger Catechism understood the entire moral law (i.e., both tables of the law) to bind the civil magistrate, and nothing in the 1788 Standards changed this. The 1788 Larger Catechism still includes political fathers of the “commonwealth,” under the Fifth Commandment, to have duties toward those under their care (WLC 123–130). WLC 95 shows that the moral law is a teacher, as “The moral law is of use to all men, to inform them of the holy nature and will of God, and of their duty, binding them to walk accordingly.” Combined with the duties of the commonwealth under the Fifth Commandment, the Larger Catechism affirms the political use (first use) of the law, so that the magistrate is to teach the first table of the Ten Commandments and restrain sin in this regard.
What Is Forbidden and What Is Required
So far, I have argued that the 1788 revisions were an adaptation of the 1646 Confession to the American context, not a “correction” as DeYoung contended. So why does this matter? One reason this debate matters is that we want to properly understand what church officers today are affirming when they subscribe to the 1788 Westminster Standards (as used by the PCA and OPC). DeYoung thinks officers are prohibited from holding some of the positions of the 1646 Confession relating to the magistrate. I disagree that this is the case, and my above argument supports this. (See also the articles by James Baird).
However, in addition to what the 1788 Standards prohibit, there is also the question of what they affirm. So I will now turn to criticism of DeYoung’s portrayal of the 1788 Standards. He says of the 1788 Confession:
“[W]e must not confuse the magistrate’s role in maintaining public decorum with his role in maintaining the doctrine, worship, and discipline of the church…. While public decorum should be maintained (e.g., laws against blasphemy, lewdness, and swearing), no one was to be punished for what they believed, what church they went to, how their church worshiped, whom their church admitted into membership, what doctrines their church taught, or whether they went to church at all.”
DeYoung mentions blasphemy laws as part of the magistrate maintaining “public decorum.” The more accurate language is that this is part of the magistrate’s duty to “maintain piety” (WCF 23.2, [1788]). However, the main problem is that DeYoung affirms the permissibility of things like blasphemy laws but then says that “no one was to be punished for what they believed.” Of course, the punishment of men for public blasphemy (or Sabbath-breaking) may very well involve punishment for the expression of what they believe. Blasphemy may be occasioned by the public defaming of Christ by non-Christians who reject the belief in Christ’s divinity, and Sabbath-breaking may be occasioned by Muslims rejecting the belief that Sunday is the Lord’s Day for rest and worship. Such laws could even infringe upon the beliefs of Christians, showing that the 1788 Confession did not grant unlimited protections of conscience even to Protestants.
Let us consider Sabbath laws further. WLC 121 says we are to “remember” the Sabbath because “Satan with his instruments much labor to blot out the glory, and even the memory of it [the Sabbath], to bring in all irreligion and impiety.” Thus, Sabbath violation brings “impiety” (WLC 121). And we know that the magistrate “ought especially to maintain piety” (WCF 23.3). Therefore, the magistrate ought to prevent Sabbath violation. WLC 118 even says that “The charge of keeping the sabbath is more specially directed to governors of families, and other superiors, because they are bound not only to keep it themselves, but to see that it be observed by all those that are under their charge.” Surely the magistrate is a “superior” according to the Larger Catechism, a spiritual father holding “authority” in the “commonwealth” (WLC 124). This reading is consistent with the practice of nineteenth-century American Presbyterians, who regularly petitioned the magistrate to enforce the Sabbath (such as in 1812, 1814, and 1815).
Extending Liberty to Non-Christians?
This brings us to the question of whether DeYoung is advocating the position of the 1788 Westminster Standards. DeYoung acknowledged that “the revised Confession of Faith still expected the civil magistrate to be a supportive friend of the Christian religion. American Presbyterians in the eighteenth century did not envision a naked public square or a neutral civil magistrate” (emphasis added). He also rightly stated, “I am not suggesting that American Presbyterians of the eighteenth century would approve of the political arrangement of the twenty-first century. Surely, in many respects they would not. They assumed an overwhelmingly Protestant nation where Catholics and (more so) Jews could be tolerated, but without all the rights of Protestants.”
This is all correct. However, DeYoung then distanced himself from the 1788 position when he added: “I would argue that the principles of 1788 regarding the rights of conscience and liberty of worship should be extended to non-Christians in our day, but I grant that they did not conceive of the religious pluralism we now have in America” (emphasis added). Here DeYoung admits that he differs with the 1788 Confession by wanting to “extend” the protections for Christians in worship and conscience to “non-Christians.” We may assume this includes atheists, Muslims, and Mormons. While he does not use such words for his position, DeYoung seems to affirm the religiously “neutral civil magistrate” that he said eighteenth-century Presbyterians “did not envision.”
However, DeYoung’s position raises problems. He wants to grant “the rights of conscience” to non-Christians, but the Confession ties “true liberty of conscience” to the Word of God. As WCF 20.2 states, “God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in anything, contrary to his Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship. ” A man’s conscience is to be respected, which means not binding him beyond that which is in Scripture. The problem for DeYoung here is that non-Christians reject Scripture in some manner. Thus, WCF 20.2 adds that “to believe such doctrines [contrary to the Word], or to obey such commands, out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience: and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also.” (This language is also reflected in the 1788 first Preliminary Principle.) So the Westminster Confession ties “liberty of conscience” to the Word of God, but DeYoung wants to extend “the rights of conscience” to “non-Christians” who reject the Word of God. This is to “destroy liberty of conscience” and enable men in their false worship and disruption of public piety and peace. If the magistrate protects the “rights of conscience” for all men, believer and unbeliever alike, this hinders the magistrate’s duty to “maintain piety” (WCF 23.3).
In fact, WCF 20.4 states that civil government (“the powers which God hath ordained”) and “liberty” are “intended…mutually to uphold and preserve one another,” so that we are not to speak of “Christian liberty” as to “oppose any lawful power…whether it be civil or ecclesiastical.” Thus, if the magistrate has the right (and duty) to enforce Sabbath and blasphemy laws, then appealing to “liberty” does not negate such power.[7] How can the magistrate maintain piety by granting full protection to atheists who publicly blaspheme Christ and openly advocate the desecration of the Sabbath? In other words, to affirm the “rights of conscience” for non-Christians is to interfere with the magistrate’s duty to “maintain piety” (WCF 23.3). We cannot affirm both. DeYoung’s desire to extend “the rights of conscience and liberty of worship…to non-Christians in our day” is therefore at odds with the magistrate’s duty to oppose false worship and remove monuments of idolatry (WLC 108), as well as the magistrate’s duty to publicly enforce the Sabbath (WLC 118).
Affirming the 1788 Standards
DeYoung was right when he said, “I grant that they [Presbyterians in 1788] did not conceive of the religious pluralism we now have in America.” But by desiring to extend the rights of conscience to non-Christians, DeYoung undermines the 1788 Synod’s reasoning for rejecting the protection of pluralism. The American Presbyterians of 1788 were no different from their forefathers of 1646 in embracing the magistrate’s duty to favor the Christian religion throughout the land. They knew that religious pluralism is harmful toward the nation and the church, and we also should affirm this teaching of the 1788 Confession.
It seems, then, that DeYoung’s article was not just about the differences between the 1646 Confession and the 1788 revision. While his argument seeks to rule some views of the 1646 Confession as out of bounds for American Presbyterian church officers today, he goes beyond this by endorsing a form of religious pluralism and asserting that the magistrate should extend the 1788 Confession’s protections for Christians to non-Christians. However, this view is not only absent from the 1788 Confession, but it seems contrary to portions of the American Standards (and thus would require a church officer to state differences on this matter). Rather than 1646 views being outside of the American Presbyterian Standards, my contention is that DeYoung’s embrace of religious pluralism is at odds with the 1788 Westminster Confession and Larger Catechism (particularly WCF 20.4; 23.3; WLC 108; 118; 191).
Image: An Incident in the Rebellion of 1745, David Morier. Wikimedia Commons
[1] James Madison to James Monroe, April 12, 1785, in The Papers of James Madison, eds. Robert A. Rutland, William M. E. Rachal, Barbara D. Ripel, and Fredrika J. Teute (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), 8:261. The “contrast” was a reference to the change between Hanover’s May 1784 memorial and its October 1784 memorial that supported the general assessment bill (as the Presbytery did not formally oppose the bill until its May 1785 meeting). These comments from Madison are further evidence that some members of the Hanover Presbytery did in fact support the assessment bill at one point, including John Blair Smith and possibly even William Graham.
[2] Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, March 13, 1820, Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-15-02-0430 (accessed March 9, 2024).
[3] Thomas Cooper, An Exposition of the Doctrines of Calvinism (New York, 1834), 22–23.
[4] Minutes of the Presbyterian Church in the America, 1706–1788, ed. Guy S. Klett (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Historical Society, 1976), 581.
[5] Joseph H. Jones, The Life of Ashbel Green (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1849), 183.
[6] Jones, The Life of Ashbel Green, 183–84.
[7] WCF 20.4, “And because the powers which God hath ordained, and the liberty which Christ hath purchased, are not intended by God to destroy, but mutually to uphold and preserve one another, they who, upon pretense of Christian liberty, shall oppose any lawful power, or the lawful exercise of it, whether it be civil or ecclesiastical, resist the ordinance of God.”
