Brad Isbell: As you know in times of ecclesial controversy and change the conservative, confessional, or traditionalist side is often accused of making slippery slope arguments. Sometimes these arguments are consciously made as in Jon Payne’s recent post at the Gospel Reformation Network, where he calls the situation in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) not just a slippery slope, but a very slippery slope. Are slippery slope arguments fallacious, alarmist, or are they sometimes appropriate?
D.G. Hart: People are sometimes prissy about metaphors. If a slope is slippery it could be dangerous. Pointing out the overuse of a metaphor does not discredit the point the metaphor user is making.
From a historical perspective, nothing in history is inevitable. If a church went liberal in the past, it’s not a guarantee one is doing so in the present. Though, if someone isn’t worried about going liberal, I’m not sure what Protestant history that person is reading. I’m reading and writing now about English Presbyterians after the Glorious Revolution. They opposed subscription and overwhelmingly went Unitarian by the middle of the 18th century. Does that mean the PCA or Orthodox Presbyterian Church is headed on a similar trajectory by changing ordination standards or polity? Not really. But the opposition to the slippery slope argument is often the exceptionalist position — it can’t happen here. That seems crazy to me. In all the places where the Reformation produced some of the most solid theology and ministry, the churches became liberal by the 18th century. Instead of saying it can’t happen here, the surer point, it seems to me, is it will happen here unless we—dare I say—fight to prevent it from happening.
Brad Isbell and D.G. Hart | “Of Slopes and Church History – An Interview” | December 21, 2020
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Brad Isbell
Brad Isbell is a ruling elder at Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Oak Ridge, TN, board member of More In The PCA, co-host of the Presbycast podcast, editorial member of Presbyterian Polity, and treasurer of the Heidelberg Reformation Association.
More by Brad Isbell ›Darryl Hart
D. G. Hart teaches history at Hillsdale College. He is has written biographies of J. Gresham Machen, John Williamson Nevin, H. L. Mencken, and Benjamin Franklin. He is an elder in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and lives in Michigan with his wife, Ann.
More by Darryl Hart ›