What We Believe
Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 22:37-40
The Westminster Standards
We hold to the The Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms.
Special Mention
The following areas of emphasis are highlighted, not because they differ from the Westminster Standards, but because there is variety in the way churches hold and adhere to the Westminster Standards. Some Reformed churches view the areas of belief and practice highlighted below differently than we do. We want to clarify our position on these issues by these brief statements.
Exclusive Psalmody
We believe, in accord with the Westminster Confession and Directory for Public Worship, that in the 150 Psalms God has provided an inspired hymnbook for his people to use in worship. In the New Testament, this worship is not accompanied by instrumental music.
Simplicity of Worship
We reject the growing trend in some Reformed circles to inject elaborate liturgies into the worship of the church. A liturgy that includes forms more than necessary to conduct the elements of worship as described in WCF XXI.5 does not meet the criteria for circumstantial indifference as described in WCF I.6 and therefore embodies a violation of the regulative principle of worship.
The Regulative Principle of Worship
What we do in worship must be grounded in Scripture—either by God’s explicit command, by approved examples found in Scripture, or by what is deduced from these through good and necessary inference.
The Sabbath Day
We believe that the first day of the week is the Christian Sabbath and the only holy day prescribed in Scripture for regular New Testament worship.
Prayer Meetings/Other Informal Gatherings for Worship
We believe in the value of social worship in informal gatherings among the body of Christ, and that it is proper and beneficial for women as well as men to engage in oral prayer during these gatherings.
Family Worship
We encourage the heads of families to lead their families in daily family worship that would include the reading of scripture, a brief explanation of what is read, questions on what has just been read, the singing of a Psalm, and prayer. The level of the explanation and questions should target the entire family, not just the children.
Expository Preaching
We rejoice in expositional, experimental preaching of the whole of Scripture, including application of the Old Testament that presupposes the binding nature, abiding force, and relevance of the moral law contained in the Ten Commandments.
Free Offer of the Gospel
We believe in the free offer of the gospel, namely, that God, of his own goodness and by means of communication of the word of God, sincerely offers forgiveness to sinners through the atoning work of Christ on condition of faith and repentance. We believe it is the responsibility of both the pulpit and the people to actively share this gospel with the lost.
Personal Holiness
We believe that God requires his people to live holy lives modeled on the law of God, and that members of the church should take due measure to protect themselves and their families from dangerous content on the internet or other commonly known sources that may lead them into sin.
Engaging With Culture
We believe that it is pleasing to God that his people individually and the church, as an institution, boldly address, not only individual unbelievers, but also the culture and its civil government, with the full range of biblical truth. In particular we believe it our duty to speak and act on behalf of the unborn, whose voices are ignored and whose lives are endangered by the powers of darkness active in our culture.
Federal Vision
We reject the Federal Vision teaching that our good works, in addition to faith, are an instrumental cause of our justification. While we maintain that works are the demonstration of our sanctification, and are thus necessary to salvation (which consists of justification and sanctification), the works of men play no role in justification, which is conferred by grace alone, through faith alone, in the work of Christ alone (Eph 2:8-9; Gal 2:16). Works-based justification has plagued the church since the days of Cain.
Kinism
We reject Kinism, the teaching that God ordains the separation of races in all areas of life and suggests that race is the cause of whatever sociological virtues or pathologies might be correlated with a particular ethnic identity. Kinism is racism justified by a selective use of Scripture and misuse of examples of God's providence.
Paedo-communion
Beginning in the late 20th century, some Reformed churches in the United States, supposing they were being more consistent in their application of covenant theology, began serving communion to infants and children who had not made public profession of their faith. We reject this error as inconsistent with the scriptural requirement that communicants understand the nature of the sacrament and partake in good conscience (1 Cor 11:28-29). We consider that the practice of paedo-communion constitutes a misunderstanding of the purpose of Lord's Table, and that it is often associated with a belief in the baptismal regeneration of the children who partake, thus undermining the message of the gospel as it applies to covenant children.
Errors That We Reject
We reject the following modern re-workings of errors that have arisen from time to time in the course of church history.
Radical Two-Kingdom Theology
Radical Two-Kingdom theology maintains that cultural standards outside the church are not to be addressed to the culture by the norms of Scripture, but only by what natural man may discern from the created order (natural law). This theology, having become popular in some conservative Reformed circles, results in a general disengagement of the church from the culture. For example, some proponents of R2K theology have taught that the Bible ought not to be used to condemn gay marriage when speaking to unbelievers. It tends to minimize the preaching of the word of God on subjects with cultural application even when this preaching is addressed to the church. R2K thinking is often accompanied by a strict redemptive-historical approach to homiletics that eschews application of what is preached, hence undermining the experimental nature of faithful biblical preaching. It is especially detrimental to the distinctive Reformed view of the wide applicability of the moral law of God to all people in all times and situations. R2K theology, taking cues from the 19th century Presbyterian doctrine of the spirituality of the church, which neutered the Presbyterian testimony against chattel slavery, also shares an affinity with the so-called “Benedict Option,” which is a reworking of Roman Catholic monasticism. In recent years it has gained new strength from the teaching of Meredith Kline, promoted by several faculty members at Westminster Seminary West.