Redeemed Zoomer & Presbyterians for the Kingdom - From Quixotic to Cultic

[Ploutos]

Some friends know him personally and think it's more the latter, along with the classic problem of getting hung up about one issue and shaping everything around it.

He's not old enough for it to be the former, but before long he will be.

 

[Ploutos]

I realized, with a little despair, several years ago that the Church cannot possibly keep pace with the cultural production of YouTube, podcasts, TikTok, and social media.

Even if pastors, elders, theologians, and serious Christian institutions made a concerted effort to respond, it would be practically impossible to chase down every rabbit hole promoted by every half-informed enthusiast, semi-serious podcaster, conspiracy theorist, or online eccentric. By the time someone carefully answered one viral claim, ten more would have appeared.

You hit on something almost identical to what I went through a couple years back as I wrestled with some of the questionable beliefs and tendencies I have seen popping up around me. I can't compete with two-hour podcasts by this influencer or a stream of a dozen 5-minute shorts by that other influencer or by the curated newsfeed comprised of ten sites pushing such-and-such particular agenda that a person chooses to read. I can offer reasoned responses, build rapport and just try to be friends with the person, and I can try to direct them to better materials that they might find engaging, but ultimately there's not much I can do. I can't counterbalance for a disposition that persistently gravitates a certain way.

 

[Theoretical]

While I get why you say that and sympathize, we may literally have college and young 20's guys who are caught up in RZ's rhetoric. If anything, this is a perfect opportunity to show why what he is spewing is nonsense. If we're quick to dismiss the people who are interested in his ideas, we'll be more likely to lose them. They're wanting answers and are pushing for them.

This. What it does not mean is adapting everything to RZ or making changes like going back to the PCUSA. It means a couple of things. One, it means putting the schism question in its proper place relative to doctrinal and moral commitments. Two, it also is a sign that a generation that's been rootlessly raised by a rootless generation is desperately looking for roots and sound foundations.

RZ's offering a Protestant version of Rome or EO's certainty and ecclesiastical security such that one can certainly have different convictions, but they need to be in that set of convictions' mainline, however he defines it. Whereas a lot of historical Calvinist angst ("am I really saved - I morally failed again," "I don't read my Bible enough," "I feel cold," "I", "I", etc... is that very individualistic "how can I know I am saved," a lot of this anxiety is more corporately focused of "how can I even know that evangelical or confessional pastor is even remotely a true minister in a true church such that I would be able to be part of the body of Christ." RZ's saying there's a menu of X denominations in America and then just find a conservative or moderate one and you're good to go and can deal with your individualistic side of the coin.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

You hit on something almost identical to what I went through a couple years back as I wrestled with some of the questionable beliefs and tendencies I have seen popping up around me. I can't compete with two-hour podcasts by this influencer or a stream of a dozen 5-minute shorts by that other influencer or by the curated newsfeed comprised of ten sites pushing such-and-such particular agenda that a person chooses to read. I can offer reasoned responses, build rapport and just try to be friends with the person, and I can try to direct them to better materials that they might find engaging, but ultimately there's not much I can do. I can't counterbalance for a disposition that persistently gravitates a certain way.

I can't even keep up with it for my own children, much less every NAPARC child who is not in my own family. I'm grateful that they seek me for answers and see the folly in much of what they see.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

This. What it does not mean is adapting everything to RZ or making changes like going back to the PCUSA. It means a couple of things. One, it means putting the schism question in its proper place relative to doctrinal and moral commitments. Two, it also is a sign that a generation that's been rootlessly raised by a rootless generation is desperately looking for roots and sound foundations.

RZ's offering a Protestant version of Rome or EO's certainty and ecclesiastical security such that one can certainly have different convictions, but they need to be in that set of convictions' mainline, however he defines it. Whereas a lot of historical Calvinist angst ("am I really saved - I morally failed again," "I don't read my Bible enough," "I feel cold," "I", "I", etc... is that very individualistic "how can I know I am saved," a lot of this anxiety is more corporately focused of "how can I even know that evangelical or confessional pastor is even remotely a true minister in a true church such that I would be able to be part of the body of Christ." RZ's saying there's a menu of X denominations in America and then just find a conservative or moderate one and you're good to go and can deal with your individualistic side of the coin.

Well noted.

I do think this helps explain some of the attraction. A generation raised rootlessly by a largely rootless generation is understandably looking for roots, authority, continuity, and sound foundations. Redeemed Zoomer offers something like a Protestant version of the certainty promised by Rome or Eastern Orthodoxy. The message is that there is a recognizable institutional structure, a defined set of acceptable communions, and a mainline within which one can rest without continually revisiting whether one’s minister or congregation is really part of the visible Church.

That addresses a genuine anxiety. Older forms of Calvinist introspection often focused on the individual: Am I truly converted? Have I repented sufficiently? Why do I feel spiritually cold? Do my continuing sins prove that I am not saved? The newer anxiety is often corporate and ecclesiastical: How can I know that this pastor is a true minister, that this congregation is a true church, or that I am really connected to the historic body of Christ?

Those are not foolish questions. They deserve serious answers. But the lasting answer cannot finally be found in winning disputes about theological retrieval, locating the correct institutional lineage, or placing oneself within a particular denominational chart.

The only testimony that finally endures is the reality of Christ’s mediatorial work entering the bloodstream of the believer and the believing community. Christ does not merely supply us with a correct ecclesiastical theory. He calls, regenerates, justifies, adopts, sanctifies, preserves, and ultimately glorifies His people. He gathers them into His Church and works through the ministry of the Word, the sacraments, prayer, discipline, and the communion of saints.

Correct doctrine is indispensable, but debate over correct doctrine can take a person only so far if the doctrine never enters the marrow. A man may be able to identify the historic Church, explain apostolic succession, defend institutional continuity, and distinguish schism from separation, while remaining spiritually unfed and unable to face suffering, guilt, death, or judgment.

My father died recently. I was present when a Roman Catholic priest arrived and administered the last rites. What I witnessed struck me as terribly shallow. There were rites, institutional claims, and sacramental language, but very little that addressed the awful reality of death by directing the dying man and his family clearly to the finished work of the crucified, risen, and ascended Christ.

I also look at the lives of my brothers, nieces, and nephews, who range from practicing to nominal to apostate Roman Catholics. All the talk about the identity of the true Church, the operation of grace through its sacraments, and the security supposedly provided by the institution is belied by the spiritual condition of actual people. That is not to say that every Roman Catholic is insincere or that outward inconsistency by itself disproves an ecclesiastical claim. It is to say that institutional assurances can be remarkably hollow when they are not accompanied by the living ministry of Christ through His Word and Spirit.

A church is truly tested by how it ministers amid real loss and suffering.

I do not mean the kind of grief that is quickly covered over with a “celebration of life,” sentimental memories, and an implicit eat, drink, and be merry because we cannot bear to speak honestly about death. I mean the sorrow that can only be answered by crying out to God in Christ, asking that suffering, injustice, decay, and death itself be vindicated and finally overcome.

The Church must be able to stand at the grave and say more than that the deceased had a good life or remains alive in our memories. It must proclaim that Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ reigns, and Christ will raise His people. It must minister that hope through a community that knows how to weep with those who weep, sing Psalms of lament, pray for the brokenhearted, and sustain one another in the confidence that death will not have the final word.

Theories about retrieval, institutional recovery, or “taking back the Church” are relatively easy for healthy young men with time to argue online. One can sit through the heretical or mindless ramblings of a minister who no longer clearly preaches the risen Christ and imagine oneself to be a kind of ecclesiastical paladin, recovering or preserving an institution for future generations.

But is that institution functioning as the household of God?

Are its members being built up and sustained through Christ’s work in and through one another? Is the living Word being preached? Are the sacraments being administered according to Christ’s institution? Is sin being confronted, forgiveness proclaimed, weary consciences comforted, and suffering saints pointed to their faithful High Priest?

Does it matter that the means of grace have been corrupted? Does it matter that a minister uses Christian vocabulary while denying the truths that give that vocabulary life? Does it matter that there is no balm for weary souls, no clear Gospel for guilty sinners, and no resurrection hope for people standing beside a coffin?

Of course it matters.

We do not exist for the Church as though the preservation of an institution were the supreme end of the Christian life. Christ established the Church for His own glory and for the gathering and perfecting of the saints. We are desperate pilgrims who need the Church to preach the living Word, administer the means of grace faithfully, bear our burdens, and point us continually to the dead, risen, ascended, and reigning Christ.

Schism is a serious sin. So is corrupting the Church until its institutional continuity becomes a substitute for the ministry of Christ. The question is not merely whether an organization survives, retains property, preserves a name, or maintains a historical pedigree. The question is whether Christ is feeding His sheep there.

Roots matter, but roots that do not reach living water cannot sustain anyone when suffering, sin, and death arrive.

 

[Jake]

I tried to wrap my mind around what he is doing. I like the idea of advocating for reform of denominations. There are cases of varying decrees of success in doing this. My own denomination (the ARP Church) was going in a more theologically liberal denomination, especially our institutions (college and seminary), but we are largely going in a good direction today, with work still on-going to be more confessional. You can count others in this area, such as the Southern Baptist Convention, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and maybe even the RCUS (at least the conservative group kept the name). There are promising happenings in the CRCNA today as well.

I do think the PC(USA) is a tough target because of what views are already required or practically required. Some denominations allow a greater amount of beliefs, like the UCC and RCA, but I'm not sure it is possible to be a PC(USA) minister who is not fully inclusive of women ordained to all offices of the church for example. There are some churches that have elected to stay and fight in some denominations who have been able to be full conservatives, but this is less possible in some mainline churches.

All of that said, he has gone in a stranger direction in trying to identify which church has the purest roots and lineage and saying anything not part of that is schism. The only other place I have run into this is with some Covenanters trying to identify which Covenanter-heritage church has the most direct line. Or maybe some of the Scottish churches claiming to be the true heirs of the Church of Scotland. Even for American Presbyterians, the question gets a bit muddled. The ARP Church formed a synod in 1782 before the PC(USA) in 1789. But then much of the ARP Church ended up merging into the PC(USA) primarily via the United Presbyterians (northern ARP Synods -> UPCNA -> UPCUSA -> PCUSA). But just like apostolic succession, the question is not who can prove the best historical lineage, but who can show themselves most faithful to the teachings of the Apostles in Holy Scripture. When looking for a church I look for biblical fidelity.

 

[Northern Crofter]

I tried to wrap my mind around what he is doing. I like the idea of advocating for reform of denominations. There are cases of varying decrees of success in doing this. My own denomination (the ARP Church) was going in a more theologically liberal denomination, especially our institutions (college and seminary), but we are largely going in a good direction today, with work still on-going to be more confessional. You can count others in this area, such as the Southern Baptist Convention, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and maybe even the RCUS (at least the conservative group kept the name). There are promising happenings in the CRCNA today as well.

I do think the PC(USA) is a tough target because of what views are already required or practically required. Some denominations allow a greater amount of beliefs, like the UCC and RCA, but I'm not sure it is possible to be a PC(USA) minister who is not fully inclusive of women ordained to all offices of the church for example. There are some churches that have elected to stay and fight in some denominations who have been able to be full conservatives, but this is less possible in some mainline churches.

All of that said, he has gone in a stranger direction in trying to identify which church has the purest roots and lineage and saying anything not part of that is schism. The only other place I have run into this is with some Covenanters trying to identify which Covenanter-heritage church has the most direct line. Or maybe some of the Scottish churches claiming to be the true heirs of the Church of Scotland. Even for Presbyterians, the question gets a bit muddled. The ARP Church formed a synod in 1782 before the PC(USA) in 1789. But then much of the ARP Church ended up merging into the PC(USA) primarily via the United Presbyterians (northern ARP Synods -> UPCNA -> UPCUSA -> PCUSA). But just like apostolic succession, the question is not who can prove the best historical lineage, but who can show themselves most faithful to the teachings of the Apostles in Holy Scripture. When looking for a church I look for biblical fidelity.

Agreed. I don't see how Mr. Zoomer can back his claim(-s) in light of this historical reality in the US:

 

[hammondjones]

Agreed. I don't see how Mr. Zoomer can back his claim(-s) in light of this historical reality in the US:

I don't disagree with you, but that graph would look different if those lines were weighted by size of membership, which I suspect is no small part of his approach to this question.

 

[Northern Crofter]

I don't disagree with you, but that graph would look different if those lines were weighted by size of membership, which I suspect is no small part of his approach to this question.

But then he has to face the long history of the faithful often being a minority group within the membership of the visible Church.

 

[Ploutos]

But then he has to face the long history of the faithful often being a minority group within the membership of the visible Church.

You're not sufficiently focused on SCHISM, Andrew. You have to think more about how serious SCHISM is and what a terrible thing it is to be SCHISMATIC and how so many other sins are less serious than the sin of SCHISM. Remember that things like justification by faith and homosexuality are second-order debates but SCHISM is apostasy!

Have I said it enough times to make it mean what I want it to mean yet?

 

[MW]

You're not sufficiently focused on SCHISM, Andrew. You have to think more about how serious SCHISM is and what a terrible thing it is to be SCHISMATIC and how so many other sins are less serious than the sin of SCHISM. Remember that things like justification by faith and homosexuality are second-order debates but SCHISM is apostasy!

Have I said it enough times to make it mean what I want it to mean yet?

The question is, How are you saying it?

 

[Ploutos]

The question is, How are you saying it?

As if it's the only thing that matters!

 

[MW]

As if it's the only thing that matters!

Did you see the smiley face? Just having a little fun. Sorry.

 

[SojourningSøren]

Here’s a question of curiosity, and doubtless someone on here would know the answer far better than I would; but has there ever been a book or extensive research on the theology of “separation” as it pertains to keeping apart from unholy things? In terms of church/institution, I mean.

Though I guess that is basically the whole thing Augustine treatises on in City of God…

 

[Ploutos]

Did you see the smiley face? Just having a little fun. Sorry.

Apology not needed, Rev. Winzer. My reply was in the same tongue-in-cheek vein as yours; I just forgot to add a emoji in return!

 

[philomath]

Richard's thoughts on "the established church" seem so arbitrary. If I understand him correctly, he considers any of the "protestant mainlines" to be the established church in the US.

I've seen Episcopalians and Anglicans consider themselves "The Established Curch" in the US. I've seen the same with some Presbyterians and even Baptists. But the idea of a "mere mainline protestant" established church seems like an incredibly novel idea. He talks about if someone gets kicked out of their mainline denomination for trying to reform it, they should go to another mainline denomination to try and reform it. I wonder if he'd ever go to ABCUSA if he found himself in that situation.

I also find that the rhetoric of Richard et al. can be espescially worrying for what it does to people of his (and my own) generation who are theologically serious and care about the church catholic, yet deal with deep ecclesial anxiety. It seems that a lot of this has just been fuel for that fire. Saying "if you're not in the denomination of my choice, you're part of a schismatic body and in serious sin" is an excellent way to manipulate anxious people into joining a cause. Straight out of the old romish playbook. I believe I saw somewhere he even went as far as saying that conservative PCA pastors are in greater unrepentant sin than practicing homosexual "pastors" in the PCUSA.

It is very sad the way things are going with him, and it's my prayer that he would see the error of his views and repent.

On paper, I like the idea of reconquering mainlines. I keep up with people who aim to do just that, (like Church Society within the CofE) and it is an active topic I've been thinking through over the past year. I would love to see reformation in mainlines, for them to actually be conformed to Biblical teaching and repent of their many errors and heresies. I would love for liberal pagans larping as christians to not have control of historic institutions and buildings. I would love it if there was more institutional unity. But for some of them, I can't see how it could possibly work out or how you could ask a Christian to put themselves under the filth spewed in many places.

Years ago, I visited a PCUSA seminary for an alumni ceremony my Grandpa was invited to (he was a student there in his 20's studying Christian Education). I expected it to be really bad, and it was. There was a sign for a class they had called "queering homiletics" and a lady "pastor" with a ton of face piercings who claimed to be "very traditional".

As far as Richard's plans go, I wonder what will happen if the PCUSA refuses to ordain him. There's the chance of him staying in the PCUSA unordained, He may try to be ordained in one of the other mainlines like he advises others to do, or he may end up like one of the conservative anglo-catholics I've seen fail ordination in the CofE, and call the institution that rejected him (in this scenario PCUSA) apostate and go on to another institution.

I have seen some responses to him recently from folks in the ACNA and PCA so far, and look forward to Rev. Henes's debate with him.

 

[PointyHaired Calvinist]

As far as Richard's plans go, I wonder what will happen if the PCUSA refuses to ordain him. There's the chance of him staying in the PCUSA unordained, He may try to be ordained in one of the other mainlines like he advises others to do, or he may end up like one of the conservative anglo-catholics I've seen fail ordination in the CofE, and call the institution that rejected him (in this scenario PCUSA) apostate and go on to another institution.

I have seen some responses to him recently from folks in the ACNA and PCA so far, and look forward to Rev. Henes's debate with him.

He says the PCUSA is “desperate” for ministers but also made clear that “no one has the right to be ordained” (and said this during his debate with Doug Wilson). He thinks that Machen should have either 1) submitted to the GA and resigned from the Independent Board or 2) stayed in the PCUSA as a layman. Since he didn’t submit he “ran away like a coward.”

My guess is he will
A) Look for a “conservative” presbytery to ordain him or
B) Tone down his criticism of liberalism

I don’t expect him to
C) stay a layman if he can’t get ordained
but you never know.

 

[De Jager]

His own confession, the WCF pretty clearly states that some churches have degenerated so much that they are no longer even true churches, but rather "synagogues of satan". Furthermore, there is no formula to follow or judicial body who gets to decide whether a particular congregation is a "synagogue of satan", and therefore it must be left up to the conscience of the individual. As RZ would also confess, God alone is Lord of the conscience. Therefore, it is up to each and every person to ensure that he is a member of a true church. This aligns with what the Belgic Confession teaches, in that each person (i.e. each individual) is duty bound to join a true church. There is no overseeing body that gets to say "yep that's a true church" or "nope, that one isn't". However, the reality still exists. In this determination, some will no doubt err. The fact of the matter is that for most conservative reformed and presbyterian persons, the PCUSA is no longer a true church because of its sundry departures from the Word of God, and therefore, by their own consciences they are duty bound to NOT join it, and RZ's accusation of schism is not supported by either the Bible or the WCF.

 

[DanSSwing]

He is actively pursuing a degree at a PCUSA seminary. Pray for him and his movement to either succeed in reforming the PCUSA or to fail and fall apart as they try to poach and attack people in our own bodies.

That he is currently agitating a PCUSA seminary is the only good thing I’ve ever heard about him!

 

[DanSSwing]

I don’t know the PCUSA well, so correct me if I’m wrong. But does he even have a shot at getting ordained? I cannot imagine that a liberal or progressive presbytery will want anything to do with him.

I think the PCUSA recently agreed to deny ordination to any new aspirants who don’t affirm their heretical views of sexuality.

Re: ^ okay, not quite. But they’re very close to it. https://pcusa.org/news-storytelling...KHiFObbAgdSzZve6sn_aem_D6i_nMiWjmVenefzwNvBqw

 

[darrellmaurina]

I agree with Johnathan Tate. We cannot ignore Zoomer. He's having significant influence, he's very effective online, and his movement is either going to be a successful "reconquista" of the PC(USA) -- at least to the extent of forcing the denomination to tolerate people like him because they are growing -- or will blow up the PC(USA) and lead to another secession into the ECO, or maybe EPC, after Zoomer forces the issue and actually gets kicked out like he says people must do rather than walk out voluntarily.

Frankly, Zoomer reminds me very much of myself four decades ago. He is doing -- and doing much more effectively -- what I wanted to do as a member of a mainline "big steeple" Congregational church in the 1980s. His use of social media today is a 2026 version of what I was doing decades ago with AOL and before that, BBS systems. He's nailed it on how to reach young people and use technology to get around the denominational establishments.

I still to this day believe that if my local church, one of the wealthiest and most important in Grand Rapids, and with well over a thousand members, one of the largest in its denomination -- had not run out a moderate minister in the 1980s under bad circumstances unrelated to doctrine and called a hard-left radical who drove out the church's conservatives, including me, you'd probably know me as the guy trying to be a "Gerstner for the Congregationalists," seeking to recover classical New England Congregationalism for the mainliners.

I have tremendous sympathy for the core of Zoomer's project to stay and fight, not walk out like Donatists.

The devil is in the details and that's where the problems happen.

But first, let's talk about the similarities, which are not small.

There are a lot of people who, back in the 1980s and 1990s when I was debating whether to leave Congregationalism and join the Christian Reformed Church (and finally decided it would work better to remain outside the ecclesiastical reach of the CRC and pastor a small Congregational church while working for the CRC conservative movement), were saying, "How on earth does DTM run circles around the rest of us with a tiny fraction of our resources?" My answer (since many of my adversaries were Dutch) was to point out their own history of the "Sea Beggars" who fought a maritime guerilla war against the most powerful military of the era, led by the Duke of Alba sent to subjugate the Netherlands, and won.

As I told some very annoying and very arrogant Vander Somethings:

"Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine;
so from the beginning the fight we were winning:
the Lord was at our side- the glory be Thine!"

They knew EXACTLY what I was alluding to, and were furious. My response was to say, "You guys keep fighting your battles with 1950s and 1970s technology and tactics. The internet is the future. Bring your Spanish galleons and I'll use the Sea Beggar tactics, run circles around you, and use hit-and-run tactics to get around your large fleet and render it irrelevant."

Zoomer has a real possibility of becoming a major factor in PC(USA) politics. Whether the PC(USA) will tolerate him is an open question. But given that they couldn't get rid of Parker Williamson and the Presbyterian Layman because the organization was mostly run by laymen, not ordained ministers, I am not convinced the PC(USA) can stop Zoomer even if they want to do so. The precedents with homosexuals and left-wing radicals of all sorts being PC(USA) ruling elders are so firmly established, with the local churches being able to make almost anyone a ruling elder with no accountability from presbytery, regional synod or general assembly, that I think Zoomer can do what the homosexual lobby did by flat-out defying denominational rules until the denomination is forced to put up with him.

None of this is saying I agree with Zoomer on some specifics of his project. I do not support the ordination of women, though I'm a lot more concerned about the underlying hermeneutics than the issue itself. I am not a Barthian. I am a five-point Calvinist. I am not just a generic "Five Pointer" but confessionally Reformed. I disagree with Zoomer on most and perhaps all of those items. And, of course, I am fundamentally opposed to Presbyterian church government as a matter of principle, while he's dedicating himself to recover biblical orthodoxy in America's major mainline Presbyterian denomination.

Frankly, I think his project would be easier in the United Church of Christ (the mainline Congregationalists) than the PC(USA) for church polity reasons, though the UCC is far worse, doctrinally, than the PC(USA) -- or at least it was until the ECO left the PC(USA). The PC(USA) is on a race to the bottom with the UCC, the United Methodists, and the Episcopalians and the only question is which will die first.

I wish Zoomer well.

I hope he figures out -- quickly -- that while it may be politically necessary in the PC(USA) for him to attack "secessionists," he can't make that the main theme of his reconquista.

A far better approach would be for him to say, "Guys, why leave? We're growing, the liberals aren't. And the liberals established a precedent all the way back to the Auburn Affirmation, a century ago, of saying, 'We won't leave, we'll just do what we want, take control of seminaries and denominational structures, and ignore people who don't like us while we consolidate control.'"

Under current PC(USA) conditions, he has no choice but to affirm women's ordination, but that's just about the ONLY thing that is really mandatory that all presbyteries have to comply with as an ordination standard. Practically speaking, everything else is up for grabs.

If he and his movement continue to attract followers, I think it's a roll of the dice on whether the PC(USA) will decide to tolerate him, and if he's not driven out soon -- as in VERY soon -- he won't be able to be driven out and will become a growing force.

In the PC(USA) that could be a good thing.

It's not a good thing in confessionally Reformed circles and we need to be prepared to prove that no, we are NOT Donatists.

Zoomer doesn't care about me. He is debating people like Doug Wilson and the OPC moderator.

But if he did debate me, I'd tell him, "Go look at the Gereformeerde Bond in the Netherlands. They are doing what you say you want to do, they are doing it better, and you could learn a lot from them. Or go look at Senator Lucio Malan and the Waldensian Old Paths organization in Italy. The idea of fixing a national church that has gone bad can work, but you need to learn how it has worked in the past and not re-invent wheels."

Why not just ignore him? I contend that we don’t have that luxury. He has boasted of PCA and OPC members he’s convinced to go PCUSA. He’s winning more converts from our churches than from his own, and is spending triple the effort recruiting from and attacking NAPARC churches than attacking liberalism in the PCUSA. If you make a good argument against him he blocks you. Some of his supporters are using language reminiscent of Steven Anderson.

He and his ilk are influencing our young men especially and we have to be ready for him. He has promoted USA churches as “orthodox” That not only have female elders, but even some that are LGBT friendly.

 

[darrellmaurina]

The problem is not merely that Redeemed Zoomer is young, or that his arguments are shallow. The deeper problem is a culture that believes it should be receiving its theology from a Gen Zer in the first place.

Brother, I get your point, but Zoomer is going to remind you of the age of Ursinus and Olevianus when they became the primary authors of the Heidelberg Catechism. HINT: The majority of newly minted seminary graduates today are a lot older than they were when they wrote the Heidelberg as very junior professors of theology.

A significant number of major church leaders of the Reformation era were dismissed by the Catholics as young radical extremists. They may have been young, radical, and extreme, but they were also right, and they, unlike most -- not all but most -- of the older church leaders of the 1500s, were willing to risk everything to lead the Reformation.

Major movements of major change are rarely led by old men.

The real point is what you said here:

That is part of the problem with Redeemed Zoomer. He is not merely an unusually confident young man. He reflects a culture that is satisfied with meme-level answers to questions that have occupied the Church for centuries. Complex ecclesiological questions become charts. Historical disputes become personality conflicts. Difficult distinctions between schism, separation, corruption, catholicity, and institutional continuity become slogans. Confidence substitutes for comprehension, and novelty substitutes for learning.

This is the "sound bite culture." I deal with it all the time in secular politics. It's not just the church world.

I know what it is like to be Zoomer's age, and get told by Reformed men old enough to by my father and grandfather to stay quiet, not cause trouble, say the right things, get my doctoral degree, and ten or fifteen years down the road when I had the right credentials and a tenure track position at a good Reformed seminary, go write some books that would energize young people on the need to reform the church.

My answer? Most young people I knew in the 1980s were leaving the Reformed world and becoming some type of Baptist, charismatic or broad evangelical, and the confessionally Reformed local churches were mostly elderly people with white hair that had lost their young people a generation earlier to places like Sunshine Ministry Center, or to non-Reformed churches entirely. I wasn't the only young Calvinist I knew, but I was very close to the only one.

I said, "We don't have ten to fifteen years. The CRC is going to either collapse or be fixed in five years, maybe not even that long."

Zoomer is saying, "We don't have time for deep thought that won't reach most young people anyway."

And that's not new. Four decades ago, I was being told by the CRC leaders, and the "home missions" people, that if something can't fit on an index card there's no point in trying to say it.

Sorry, but that is fundamentally incompatible with confessional Christianity in any form, whether Reformed, Lutheran, or Roman Catholic.

It leads to broad evangelicalism, not Calvinism.

But again, that's an American problem, not a Zoomer problem. He didn't create it, and it predated him by generations.

 

[PointyHaired Calvinist]

Here is a video from Presbyterians for the Kingdom, Ackerman’s pressure group.

It seems to me that they are desperate to say they have victories (they’re right if you define a victory as “not as bad a defeat as it could have been”). They’re also desperate for inclusion and understanding.

Given ten years, I’m almost convinced they will have left or made peace with LGBT. I’d be thrilled to be wrong.

 

[darrellmaurina]

Here is a video from Presbyterians for the Kingdom, Ackerman’s pressure group.

It seems to me that they are desperate to say they have victories (they’re right if you define a victory as “not as bad a defeat as it could have been”). They’re also desperate for inclusion and understanding.

Given ten years, I’m almost convinced they will have left or made peace with LGBT. I’d be thrilled to be wrong.

Yes, the "inclusion and understanding" is the standard conservative approach in liberal academia and liberal denominations of a couple decades ago. Back when liberals prided themselves on tolerance, it worked. I'm old enough to remember when the ACLU was defending the right of Nazis -- yes, literal uniformed Nazis -- to march in Skokie, Illinois, and that emphasis on free speech was considered an essential part of liberalism.

It no longer works, now that liberals have become leftists and "woke" intolerance is the new normal.

I guess the question is what does "made peace with LGBT" mean.

The price of remaining in a mainline denomination in Europe is tolerating outright heresy of the worst forms imaginable in the same denomination, and saying, "We can't stop you from doing that in your local churches, or teaching it at the denominational seminary, or promoting it in denominational publications, but we refuse to do it in our local churches. If you throw us out, you throw out the only churches in your denomination that are actually growing. Think carefully before you act."

In a PC(USA) context, that means tolerating female ministers since the Kenyon case, and toleration of denials of things like the virgin birth since the Auburn Affirmation. If you can do that, putting up with a gay minister in some old church building with few people attending except the "Pride Month" celebration for the cameras isn't a big step.

Obviously what I'm describing isn't in any way compatible with Presbyterian ecclesiology. It's a twisted form of congregationalism. But the PC(USA) hasn't been a confessional Presbyterian denomination for a century.

People who want to be in a confessional Presbyterian denomination aren't going to be Zoomer's target audience anyway.

It also, interestingly, means conservatives "pulling the race card." Lutheran and Anglican conservatives in Europe routinely point out that elderly white leaders of colonizer nations are in a very weak position when trying to tell ethnic minorities from subjugated countries what to do and how to run their churches. I can't see any realistic situation in which I would ever move to Italy, but if I did, high on my agenda list would be starting a whole network of Waldensian Reformed churches for Korean-speaking students, businessmen, and other immigrants to Italy, using the strictest and most traditional possible forms of Waldensian worship and catechesis, along with the Genevan Psalter (in Korean) and other external formalities to avoid accusations that "You aren't a real Waldensian, you are bringing foreign American evangelicalism into our churches."

I know from direct firsthand experience that liberals are VERY hesitant to say, "You have to do things our way" when it's a minority doing things according to the "old paths." Go ask what it's like for a tiny Italian who can barely see over the pulpit of a Dutch church -- no, I am not kidding, I actually had to stand on boxes in some of the old traditional Dutch Reformed churches with big central pulpits -- to preach from the Heidelberg using the strictest possible forms of Reformed confessional piety, and be told, "We can't believe you aren't Dutch. We know you are a Maurina, but did your mother have an 'unfortunate marriage?'" (I held my fire and told people that I can trace my ancestry a thousand years back to the Italian Alps, and as far as I know, I don't have a drop of Dutch blood.)

Also, if I went to Italy do to a "Zoomer reconquista," whenever possible, I would use the money of Korean businessmen to buy historic Waldensian buildings, return them to their historic character (which usually means the 1800s, except in the Alps where it may mean 1600s or 1700s) and promoting Reformed heritage as historic and cultural preservation. That may not mean a lot to American evangelicals and YRR "New Calvinists." It most emphatically DOES mean a lot in places like Italy where culture and history count for a great deal, and returning to the "old paths" should mean more to confessionally Reformed people than it does in some Reformed circles.

Reformed people don't do things "the old way" because they are old. We do them that way because our Reformed fathers are far more likely to be right than whatever new nonsense someone thought up last week, last month, or last year, and decided to try out the latest shiny "new thing" in the church. That approach of ignoring our history and doing whatever new idea seems (for now) to work comes from Finneyite "new measures," and is not the sort of thing that builds a confessional and covenantal multigenerational Reformed church.

We need to be able to tell our people, "We do things the way we do them because we are, in our congregation, one small part of a historic confessional tradition that dates back centuries, has existed in large numbers of places and languages, and developed over centuries."

That may not mean much to an American Bible Belt evangelical.

Go to a Catholic country in Europe and it means a great deal to explain that no, Protestants are **NOT** "the church of what's happening now," but Reformed people are a part of an ancient faith dating back to St. Augustine, and our forms of worship and piety date back (at least) to the 1500s. For an Italian Waldensian, they date back even farther, at least three and a half centuries before the Reformation to Peter Waldo's conversion in 1173 and Bible translation work, and perhaps longer. We can correctly say that the Genevans went to their Alpine neighbors to the South in the Waldensian Valleys and said, "You share the same faith we do, and preserved it when most of the rest of Europe lost the faith."

If Zoomer wants to talk about "no separation, no schism," maybe he ought to do what the Genevans did at the Synod of Chanforan in 1532.

In other words, I can talk that language better than he does.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Brother, I get your point, but Zoomer is going to remind you of the age of Ursinus and Olevianus when they became the primary authors of the Heidelberg Catechism. HINT: The majority of newly minted seminary graduates today are a lot older than they were when they wrote the Heidelberg as very junior professors of theology.

I take the point, and I certainly would not argue that youth itself disqualifies someone from exercising significant influence in the Church. Ursinus and Olevianus are good reminders of that.

But I think there are some very important points of discontinuity that actually reinforce what I was getting at.

Ursinus and Olevianus were young, but they were not intellectually young in the way we normally mean that expression. Ursinus had studied under Melanchthon for years, had interacted with Calvin and Peter Martyr Vermigli, was a professor of dogmatics at Heidelberg, and had already written two catechisms that contributed substantially to the Heidelberg. Olevianus had earned a doctorate in civil law and then studied theology among men such as Calvin, Beza, Bullinger, and others. They were young men who had been intensively formed within one of the most learned theological cultures Christianity has produced.

There is another important discontinuity. The Heidelberg Catechism was not the sixteenth-century equivalent of two twenty-somethings starting a YouTube channel. Frederick III commissioned the work. Ursinus appears to have been its principal author, but the Catechism was produced with the participation of the theological faculty, church superintendents, ministers, and other church leaders, and it was subsequently approved by a Palatinate synod. Even the traditional description of Ursinus and Olevianus as simply "the two authors" needs qualification in light of the historical evidence.

That distinction matters enormously.

The problem I have with RZ is not, "Young man, sit down and wait until you are fifty." I would be delighted to see young men with his energy, technological instincts, and obvious desire for ecclesiastical seriousness devote themselves to reforming the Church.

But zeal needs formation.

If he possessed something approaching the scholarship of the young Reformers he is being compared to, and especially if he had their respect for the great stream of historical theology in which they stood, his zeal could be put to tremendous use.

Those men did not become important because they were audacious enough to announce that generations of Christians had overlooked the one decisive insight they had just discovered. They became important in significant part because they had absorbed enormous amounts of what came before them. They knew the Fathers. They knew the medieval debates. They knew the Reformers immediately preceding them. They knew their opponents. They knew languages. They knew the exegetical and theological arguments. Their disagreements with received positions emerged out of serious engagement with them.

That is almost the exact opposite of the tendency I am criticizing.

My concern with RZ is that questions with an enormous historical literature behind them get compressed into assertions like "schism is apostasy," or into a denominational genealogy from which remarkably sweeping conclusions are drawn. Rutherford gets recruited as though citing Rutherford settles the question, while the distinctions Rutherford himself makes concerning separation and communion seem to disappear.

That is not theological retrieval in the best sense. Retrieval means entering a conversation that began before you arrived and understanding it well enough to know what the participants were actually arguing about. It requires enough humility to suspect that when Rutherford, Calvin, Turretin, Voetius, or the Westminster divines make distinctions that complicate your thesis, the problem might not be that they failed to appreciate your insight.

This is why I do not think the relevant comparison is simply:

"RZ is young. Ursinus and Olevianus were young. Therefore we should not object to RZ's youth."

Of course not.

The more interesting comparison is what those young Reformers had done with their youth.

They had submitted themselves to extraordinary intellectual and theological formation. They sat under giants. They mastered the arguments. They participated in the institutional life of the Church. They wrote within a community of theologians and ministers who could correct, refine, and sometimes overrule them. Their theological innovations were produced from within an astonishingly deep engagement with the Christian tradition.

So yes, give me young men with tremendous zeal.

Give me twenty-five-year-olds who want to reform the Church.

But also give me twenty-five-year-olds who have enough respect for the Church to realize that ecclesiology did not begin when they created a denominational flowchart.

 

[darrellmaurina]

We largely agree, and perhaps completely. I hope my followup post on "keeping to the old paths" shows what I mean by learning from our history and not joining the Finneyite model of chasing after the next new thing. Zoomer is part of a soundbite culture, and that was going on before he was born, and really, it was a problem before Zoomer's parents were born.

It's why I wrote this in a previous post:

"The real point is what you said here:

Semper Fidelis said:
That is part of the problem with Redeemed Zoomer. He is not merely an unusually confident young man. He reflects a culture that is satisfied with meme-level answers to questions that have occupied the Church for centuries. Complex ecclesiological questions become charts. Historical disputes become personality conflicts. Difficult distinctions between schism, separation, corruption, catholicity, and institutional continuity become slogans. Confidence substitutes for comprehension, and novelty substitutes for learning."

I take the point, and I certainly would not argue that youth itself disqualifies someone from exercising significant influence in the Church. Ursinus and Olevianus are good reminders of that.

But I think there are some very important points of discontinuity that actually reinforce what I was getting at.

Ursinus and Olevianus were young, but they were not intellectually young in the way we normally mean that expression. Ursinus had studied under Melanchthon for years, had interacted with Calvin and Peter Martyr Vermigli, was a professor of dogmatics at Heidelberg, and had already written two catechisms that contributed substantially to the Heidelberg. Olevianus had earned a doctorate in civil law and then studied theology among men such as Calvin, Beza, Bullinger, and others. They were young men who had been intensively formed within one of the most learned theological cultures Christianity has produced.

There is another important discontinuity. The Heidelberg Catechism was not the sixteenth-century equivalent of two twenty-somethings starting a YouTube channel. Frederick III commissioned the work. Ursinus appears to have been its principal author, but the Catechism was produced with the participation of the theological faculty, church superintendents, ministers, and other church leaders, and it was subsequently approved by a Palatinate synod. Even the traditional description of Ursinus and Olevianus as simply "the two authors" needs qualification in light of the historical evidence.

That distinction matters enormously.

The problem I have with RZ is not, "Young man, sit down and wait until you are fifty." I would be delighted to see young men with his energy, technological instincts, and obvious desire for ecclesiastical seriousness devote themselves to reforming the Church.

But zeal needs formation.

If he possessed something approaching the scholarship of the young Reformers he is being compared to, and especially if he had their respect for the great stream of historical theology in which they stood, his zeal could be put to tremendous use.

Those men did not become important because they were audacious enough to announce that generations of Christians had overlooked the one decisive insight they had just discovered. They became important in significant part because they had absorbed enormous amounts of what came before them. They knew the Fathers. They knew the medieval debates. They knew the Reformers immediately preceding them. They knew their opponents. They knew languages. They knew the exegetical and theological arguments. Their disagreements with received positions emerged out of serious engagement with them.

That is almost the exact opposite of the tendency I am criticizing.

My concern with RZ is that questions with an enormous historical literature behind them get compressed into assertions like "schism is apostasy," or into a denominational genealogy from which remarkably sweeping conclusions are drawn. Rutherford gets recruited as though citing Rutherford settles the question, while the distinctions Rutherford himself makes concerning separation and communion seem to disappear.

That is not theological retrieval in the best sense. Retrieval means entering a conversation that began before you arrived and understanding it well enough to know what the participants were actually arguing about. It requires enough humility to suspect that when Rutherford, Calvin, Turretin, Voetius, or the Westminster divines make distinctions that complicate your thesis, the problem might not be that they failed to appreciate your insight.

This is why I do not think the relevant comparison is simply:

"RZ is young. Ursinus and Olevianus were young. Therefore we should not object to RZ's youth."

Of course not.

The more interesting comparison is what those young Reformers had done with their youth.

They had submitted themselves to extraordinary intellectual and theological formation. They sat under giants. They mastered the arguments. They participated in the institutional life of the Church. They wrote within a community of theologians and ministers who could correct, refine, and sometimes overrule them. Their theological innovations were produced from within an astonishingly deep engagement with the Christian tradition.

So yes, give me young men with tremendous zeal.

Give me twenty-five-year-olds who want to reform the Church.

But also give me twenty-five-year-olds who have enough respect for the Church to realize that ecclesiology did not begin when they created a denominational flowchart.

 

[andrewnrice]

Here is a video from Presbyterians for the Kingdom, Ackerman’s pressure group.

It seems to me that they are desperate to say they have victories (they’re right if you define a victory as “not as bad a defeat as it could have been”). They’re also desperate for inclusion and understanding.

Given ten years, I’m almost convinced they will have left or made peace with LGBT. I’d be thrilled to be wrong.

The Book of Order says this: “The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) shall guarantee full participation and representation in its worship, governance, and emerging life to all persons or groups within its membership” (BO F-1.0403). This paragraph of the Book of Order is titled Unity in Diversity and is as bad as it sounds. Furthermore, in their Book of Confessions, in the Brief Statement of Faith, it states, “[The Holy Spirit] calls women and men to all ministries of the Church” (BC 11.4.64). In the preface to the Book of Order, it says, “SHALL and IS TO BE/ARE TO BE signify practice that is mandated,” which means that those in the PCUSA are required to admit unrepentant homosexuals and transsexuals to the Lord's Supper. In reference to the Brief Statement of Faith, the PCUSA teaches that women are called to all ministries of the Church, which I imagine includes the offices of the Church. The Book of Order says, “In these statements [the Book of Confessions] the church declares to its members and to the world who and what it is, what it believes, and what it resolves to do” (BO F-2.01). Additionally, in the constitutional questions, the ordinand must affirm to “...be governed by our church’s [the PCUSA's] polity” (BO W-4.0404), and I imagine this entails that he must approve of how the denomination is governed, and I do not see how a Reformed Christian can, in good conscience, answer this question in the affirmative.

 

[darrellmaurina]

The Book of Order says this: “The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) shall guarantee full participation and representation in its worship, governance, and emerging life to all persons or groups within its membership” (BO F-1.0403). This paragraph of the Book of Order is titled Unity in Diversity and is as bad as it sounds. Furthermore, in their Book of Confessions, in the Brief Statement of Faith, it states, “[The Holy Spirit] calls women and men to all ministries of the Church” (BC 11.4.64). In the preface to the Book of Order, it says, “SHALL and IS TO BE/ARE TO BE signify practice that is mandated,” which means that those in the PCUSA are required to admit unrepentant homosexuals and transsexuals to the Lord's Supper. In reference to the Brief Statement of Faith, the PCUSA teaches that women are called to all ministries of the Church, which I imagine includes the offices of the Church. The Book of Order says, “In these statements [the Book of Confessions] the church declares to its members and to the world who and what it is, what it believes, and what it resolves to do” (BO F-2.01). Additionally, in the constitutional questions, the ordinand must affirm to “...be governed by our church’s [the PCUSA's] polity” (BO W-4.0404), and I imagine this entails that he must approve of how the denomination is governed, and I do not see how a Reformed Christian can, in good conscience, answer this question in the affirmative.

I agree if you're dealing with the ordination of women. The Kenyon case settled that decades ago. A person who objects to the ordination of women cannot be ordained as a pastor in the PC(USA) and the older generation of men who were "grandfathered" in before the Kenyon case have nearly all either done what John Gerstner did and left the PC(USA), or stayed and their objections to women's ordination became less and less heard as they retired or died.

I know the arguments being made that the PC(USA) has now imposed the same mandate for agreeing with homosexual ordination that has long been in place with women's ordination. I don't dispute that the PC(USA) may end up there, and if it does, it will lead to an even larger number of churches joining the ECO and/or EPC.

However, there are two problems with that argument.

First, while the Kenyon Case is settled law of their church, this one isn't yet settled. Large numbers of people in the PC(USA) still object to homosexual ordination, and even some of those who are pro-gay recognize this is NOT the right time to fight that battle since they may lose. If I were pro-gay, and I most emphatically am not, I would NOT be pushing to force the issue on everyone and every church now. That will lead to a pushback by people who say, "I don't care what happens in some church in San Francisco, but don't push that nonsense on our local church in Western Pennsylvania/Iowa/etc." Now some are going to say, "That's not Presbyterianism, that's de facto independency." Yeah, that's probably true. But anyone who wants a confessional Presbyterian denomination should have left the PC(USA) not just years ago but decades ago, and I would argue six decades ago when Barthianism was officially put into the confessional standards.

Second, given the decades of history of local churches and even entire presbyteries openly defying the denomination on homosexuality, it is not at all clear that the PC(USA) is capable of disciplining conservatives when, even in the 1990s, it was unable to do anything about the "More Light" pro-gay caucus.

Zoomer and his supporters have two options.

One is to fight to keep a homosexual ordination mandate from being imposed on all PC(USA) churches. My read of the situation is that he has probably a couple more general assemblies left (their GAs meet every other year, not annually, so I'm saying four, maybe six years) to draw a line in the sand with the argument that the pro-gay churches are mostly dying and have no future, while the churches that object to gay ministers are not only a majority but the only ones that are growing and have a future. He may win on pragmatics if not on principle.

The other is to follow the liberal model of local churches and presbyteries flat-out refusing to obey the General Assembly. I'm not saying that's a good route. It is not. But it is, as a matter of historical fact, how successful conservative groups in the mainline denominations of Europe have worked by saying, "We didn't change, you changed, and we refuse to go along." The legal situation in the European former state churches and the older "free churches" is significantly different from that in the United States, but in the court of public opinion (which is often what really counts, not the legal verdicts in courts of law) liberals generally get what they want when they say, "Let us do this," but generally do NOT get what they want when they try to force their views on people who represent the older conservative position. It's widely recognized that "intolerant liberals" are hypocrites and a fair number of their own people recognize the inherent contradiction in demanding tolerance for decades for gay ministers, and openly defying the denomination to have gay ministers, but one gay ministers are allowed, forcing everybody else to agree with the new rules.

I want to be crystal clear here that I am **NOT** defending people joining the PC(USA). I was baptized in the UCC and if I hadn't been run out of my large "big steeple" mainline Congregational church in the 1980s by a new pastor who brought a hard-left agenda into a previously middle-of-the-road church, I would still today be in the mainline Congregationalists. I know the mainline from the inside, and because of its Presbyterian polity and denominational ownership of buildings, things are worse in the PC(USA) for conservatives than in the UCC.

What I'm saying is that Zoomer faces major problems, and I think there is a high likelihood he will fail, but we need to be clear on the problems he actually faces. The PC(USA) simply does NOT treat its denominational rules the way the OPC does, or the PCA. We've already seen all sorts of aberrant practices being tolerated in the PCA until videos start getting wide circulation, and enforcing the rules is not something the PCA is known for doing unless forced to do it. That applies even more to the PC(USA) where the written rules, and the reality in local churches, may be widely divergent.

 

[andrewnrice]

I agree that dissenting from the General Assembly isn't a good route, as it would be like painting a target on your back. As for your comment on homosexual ordination, I was making my point about admitting unrepentant homosexuals and transsexuals to the Lord's Table, not them being ordinands. I do find it strange that the PCUSA won't enforce its constitution, especially since all officers (to my knowledge) are to "approve" the PCUSA's polity, which would include the full participation of all groups and persons in the church, including homosexuals and transsexuals as enumerated in its constitution. On that note, in the Book of Order, it is a recent change that homosexuals and transsexuals are among those persons God unites in baptism, to use the BO's language. Here is the full paragraph if you are curious (the boldface is what the document has noted as new wording in the latest edition of the Book of Order):

"The unity of believers in Christ is reflected in the rich diversity of the Church’s membership. In Christ, by the power of the Spirit, God unites persons through baptism regardless of race, ethnicity, age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, geography, or theological conviction. There is therefore no place in the life of the Church for discrimination against any person. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) shall guarantee full participation and representation in its worship, governance, and emerging life to all persons or groups within its membership. No member shall be denied participation or representation for any reason other than those stated in this Constitution." (Book of Order, F-1.0403, Unity in Diversity)

I do pray that the reform movement is successful in the PCUSA, but I think those who are working for reform from within are too optimistic, and my impression is that they have really done little else except social media promotion to work toward that end.

 

[BrotherGilbert]

AncientPathsTV posted a timely video on this subject which I commend to you: