The Federal Vision (Part One): Redefining Covenant And Justification

I have heard it before and I will hear it again, “The Federal Vision is dead. Move on.” Though it is true that the Federal Vision (FV) is now well over twenty years old, it has lost none of its steam in 2025. In fact, over the last five years the FV has made considerable gains by capitalizing on the dysfunction brought on by the pandemic. The refusal of CREC (Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches) churches (the home, by and large, of the FV) to close their doors during the lockdowns, coupled with their emphasis upon strong families, Christian education, biblical masculinity in a feminized world, post-millennial optimism, and its seemingly historic forms of worship, proved to be uniquely enticing to a host of disenchanted evangelicals who were hungering for something more. The more that they thought they were getting was the Reformed Presbyterianism of Geneva and Westminster. What they got instead was a loose, patch-work theological system from Moscow, Idaho that is only decades old. Though some have chosen to ditch the label altogether, the same ideas that gave birth to the movement twenty years ago are still being taught today.1 Hence my reason for writing. The FV is not dead, and we would be foolish to sleep on it now.

Brief History

In 2002, Steve Wilkins, pastor of the Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church (AAPC) in Monroe, Louisiana invited Steve Schlissel, Norman Shepherd, and Douglas Wilson to speak at the church’s annual theology conference. It was at this conference that the controversial tenets of the FV first came to the attention of the Reformed world. The 2003 meeting of the AAPC only served to deepen concerns. As time went on and response papers were written and exchanged, it became clear that the controversy could no longer be chalked up to mere semantic differences or talking past one another. The FV’s subtle but dramatic redefinitions of covenant, election, justification, and sacramental efficacy make it incompatible with the historic Reformed faith. The purpose of this essay is to focus on the subtle ways the FV redefines covenant and justification and how these redefinitions are detrimental to the Christian experience.

Surveying the Field

Man lives under one of two divinely instituted covenants—the covenant of works or the covenant of grace—and which one we live under determines where we will spend eternity. If the distinctions between these covenants are blurred or functionally eliminated, our understanding of justification and soteriology as a whole will inevitably crumble. Therefore, covenant theology and justification must be handled with the utmost precision and care whether it be from the pulpit, in academic writing, or online.

The Reformed and FV both agree that those who are members of the covenant of grace, in whatever capacity, really do enjoy unique benefits that those outside of the covenant community do not. The preaching and teaching of God’s Word, the care of elders, the fellowship of the saints—all of these are precious gifts from God that are enjoyed by all within the covenant. In its effort to so honor the covenant, however, the FV assigns it qualities that do not properly belong to it. According to Richard Phillips, “The Federal Vision says we are saved by the covenant; Reformed Theology says we are saved by Christ. The Federal Vision says the covenant itself conveys a relationship of life and blessing with God; the Reformed faith says the covenant offers salvation upon the condition of faith in Christ and his gospel.”2 Clearly there is serious disagreement over what the covenant itself can and cannot do. The first order of business is to explore what each side means when they say “covenant.”

The Historic Reformed Definition of Covenant

Herman Witsius defined a covenant in general as, “a mutual agreement between parties, with respect to something.”3 When a husband and wife are married, they formally agree to be spiritually, emotionally, and physically faithful to one another. The covenant of marriage establishes or initiates a new relationship between the man and the woman. Of the nature of the divine covenants between God and man, Witsius’s definition is standard. He wrote, “A covenant of God with man, is an agreement between God and man, about the way of obtaining consummate happiness; including a commination of eternal destruction, with which the contemner of the happiness, offered in that way, is to be punished.”4 This definition applies both to the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. In both covenants the promise of happiness held forth is the same—everlasting life, both in body and soul.5 The conditions are where the two differ. The conditions of the covenant of works that God made with Adam (and all his posterity in him) were “perfect and perpetual obedience” to the entire moral law and to God’s positive command not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Westminster Confession of Faith [WCF] 7.2).

After Adam disobeyed the positive command and stood condemned under the terms of the covenant of works, Adam became incapable of attaining life by that first covenant (WCF 7.3). In response, God graciously condescended to enter into a second covenant with sinful man, called the covenant of grace, in order to redeem him out the estate of sin and misery and to bring him into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer (WSC 20). The condition of the covenant of grace is faith in Christ, in the Redeemer, whose mission it was to perfectly satisfy all the terms of the covenant of works both in his active and passive obedience. The covenant of grace is God’s instrument of salvation. It is within the parameters of the covenant that God is pleased to communicate the promised Christ and salvation to all who meet the conditions of the covenant—namely, saving faith in Jesus Christ, the sum and substance of salvation. This is the standard Reformed understanding.

The Federal Vision’s Definition of Covenant

For the FV the covenant is much more than a promise or offer of salvation; the covenant is salvation.6 The covenant is nothing shy of a vital, saving relationship with God in Christ. Covenant means relationship. That is the standard FV definition. Guy Waters, quoting Steve Wilkins and James Jordan, writes, “Covenant as it relates to man, simply and perhaps too simplistically stated, is the relationship of love and communion with the living, Triune God” (Wilkins).7 “The covenant is a personal-structural bond which joins the three persons of God in a community of life, and in which man was created to participate” (James Jordan).8

Jordan’s definition so identifies covenant with relationship that he is willing to say that each of the persons of the Trinity, who have an inseparable relationship with each other, are thereby in covenant. Covenant is like the glue that binds the three persons of the Godhead together, fundamental not only to God’s work of redemption but to his very being. In this, covenant ceases to be a thing into which God enters or participates—the covenant is, in a sense, God. And it is into this intra-trinitarian covenantal bond that God brings mankind through the covenant of grace.9 To participate in the covenant of grace then is to participate in the essence of the Godhead itself.

And lest one object that Waters has imported more into Wilkins’s definition of covenant than is really there, Wilkins himself explicitly states that to be in covenant is to be in union with Jesus Christ and to receive all the benefits that accompany and flow from that union:

In fact, covenant is a real relationship, consisting of real communion with the Triune God through union with Christ. The covenant is not some thing that exists apart from Christ or in addition to Him (another means of grace)—rather, the covenant is union with Christ. Thus, being in covenant gives all the blessings of being united to Christ. . . . Because being in covenant with God means being in Christ, those who are in covenant have all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places. Union with Christ means that all that is true of Christ is true of us.10

Suffice it to say that Wilkins’s definition errs on two significant fronts: first, in reading the end or goal of the covenant of grace into the definition of covenant itself (union with Christ), and second, in not respecting the invisible and visible dimensions of the covenant of grace (see WCF 25.1–2; Rom 9:6; 1 John 2:19).

Such language is how the FV can teach that the whole church, “head for head,” is united to Christ.11 Since the church is the covenant community and Christ is the head of all his church, all those united to the church then necessarily enjoy this vital, saving relationship with Christ himself. This is what the FV means by covenantal objectivity. There is no distinction between internal and external covenant members.12 This would create two covenants, the FV says. There is no visible or invisible distinction as taught in WCF 25.1–2. There is only one church with one type of member.

Another FV proponent, John Barach, so insists that every member of the visible church is in saving union with Christ that he reinterprets the historical doctrine of the perseverance of the saints in order to resolve the difficulty that apostates pose to his view of covenant objectivity.

He writes, “Yet in God’s wisdom, He has declared that some of those whom He has chosen to bring into a covenant relationship with Him will enjoy that relationship only for a time. God truly brings those people into His covenant, into union with Christ” (emphasis mine).13 This means then that there are some to whom God gives the graces of election and perseverance and others to whom he only gives the grace of election. But nowhere in Scripture are these graces ever severed—they always go hand in hand. Scripture is clear—all the elect will persevere unto the end (Phil 1:6).

Barach arrives at this conclusion due in part to his (and his colleagues’) reading of John 15. The “in me” of Christ in John 15 is understood to carry the same salvific weight as the “in Christ” in Pauline epistles.14 But Christ is not Paul, nor is their context or aim the same. The apostle Paul was extending the judgement of charity toward the churches to which he wrote. They professed faith and he had no reason to doubt their faith (though he certainly knew there would be tares present among the wheat). So, in this spirit of charity, Paul addresses the church in Ephesians 1:1, “To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus.”15

John 15, on the other hand, falls in the middle of Christ’s upper room discourse to his disciples (John 13–17). In John 13:21–30 Christ predicted that Judas Iscariot would betray him. John 15 then functions like a commentary of what had just taken place. Christ is warning his disciples that there will be some, like Judas, who will possess many gifts and graces and appear as though they were in Christ, but never truly were. No one could appear more “in” than Judas. Judas was a textbook example of the unfruitful branch in John 15. But, even if Barach were to object and say that Judas does not prove the impossibility of one having a temporary saving union with Christ and falling away thereafter, Matthew 7:21–23 settles the issue:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

Those to whom Christ preached the Sermon on the Mount were predominantly Jews. They were members of the covenant community and the pious works they performed were done in the name of their covenant Lord. Nevertheless, Christ said that he never (Οὐδέποτε) knew them. Not that he once knew them and now longer did. No, the text teaches that these persons were seemingly obedient, faithful individuals within the covenant community whom Christ never knew. How can those who were in “real communion with the Triune God through union with Christ” have never been known by Christ?16 Jesus is clear—these individuals did not enjoy saving union with him, the covenant head, at any point in time.

Barach’s reinterpretation of perseverance also contradicts Christ’s words elsewhere in the Gospel of John, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. . . . And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day” (John 6:37, 39). John later wrote in his first epistle of those who had recently apostatized, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19). These are the branches that wither and are thrown away. In order for those persons to have gone “out” from the church they must have been “in” the church in some sense. But if this being “in” means that they are savingly united to Christ, did Christ err in saying that all those who came to him and believed in him would never be cast out? Did Christ lose some of those who truly came to him? No. And since not all in the covenant community do persevere, but fall away, those individuals cannot be understood as having truly come to Christ. They may have been members of the covenant formally and visibly, but not vitally and savingly. Notice too the second half of verse 19. John distinguishes between “in” and “of.” Just because a person is “in” the covenant community does not automatically mean he is truly “of” it by faith in Christ. How can a person be “in” but not “of” the church if there is no distinction in the covenant? John has made the distinction, and so we are not only permitted, but required to make that same distinction ourselves. The FV offers no satisfying answer to these questions. All it can do is redefine of what it means to be elect, united to Christ, and to persevere unto the end.

Though Barach and others aim to be pastoral and prevent morbid introspection among members of their churches (“Am I in the covenant? Am I elect?”), their flattening out of the covenant with no differentiation and opening the door to the possibility of an “elect” person falling away actually exacerbates the very problem they try to resolve. To my mind, I cannot see how it would be at all comforting to say to someone struggling to be assured of their salvation, “Don’t worry. Remember the covenant. You are in union with Christ and ‘all the blessings of being united to Christ’17 are yours,” only to turn around and say with John Barach, “But, there are some who enjoy this covenantal relationship (i.e., union with Christ) ‘only for a time.’”18 Whatever assurance covenantal objectivity gives, the severing of election and union with Christ from the Reformation doctrine of perseverance of the saints immediately takes away. The Reformed confessions do not make this same mistake. Let the modern reader stick to the old paths instead.

Notes

  1. Douglas Wilson, “Federal Vision No Mas,” Blog and Mablog, January 17, 2017.
  2. Richard Phillips, “Covenant and Salvation or What Is a ‘Christian?’” in E. Calvin Beisner ed., The Auburn Avenue Theology, Pros and Cons: Debating the Federal Vision (Fort Lauderdale, FL: Knox Theological Seminary, 2004), 79.
  3. Herman Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man: Comprehending a Complete Body of Divinity (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1990), 43.
  4. Ibid., 45.
  5. Ibid., 46. “God’s promise of happiness is to each part, he requires the sanctification of each, and threatens each with destruction. And so this covenant makes God appear glorious in the whole man.”
  6. WCF 7:2 says, “The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam” (emphasis added). God did not automatically communicate life through the covenant but promised it. Likewise, WCF 7.3 uses the same promissory language to speak of the covenant of grace: “Wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ . . . and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life his Holy Spirit”(emphasis added). Nowhere does the Confession speak of the covenants themselves conveying the grace promised.
  7. Guy Prentiss Waters, The Federal Vision and Covenant Theology: A Comparative Analysis (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 2006), 11.
  8. James Jordan in Guy Waters, The Federal Vision: A Comparative Analysis, 11.
  9. Keep in mind that Jordan is not speaking of the covenant of redemption, or Pactum Salutis, wherein the Father and the Son agree to redeem the elect in time. The historic Reformed have long maintained this pre-temporal covenant (See David VanDrunen and R. Scott Clark, “The Covenant Before The Covenants,” Heidelblog, September 24, 2024). Jordan and Wilkins are speaking essentially. See Steve Wilkins’s chapter, “Covenant, Baptism and Salvation,” in J. Steven Wilkins and Duane Garner ed., The Federal Vision (Monroe, LA: Athanasius Press, 2004), where Wilkins explicitly states that he is not referring to the covenant of redemption but to “the holy, covenantal fellowship of love that has always existed in the Godhead” (pp.47, 51).
  10. Steve Wilkins, “Covenant, Baptism, and Salvation,” 58. Italics original.
  11. A common FV mantra.
  12. Though the FV affirms that there are those within the visible church who will not persevere unto the end, they differ with the historic Reformed in understanding that those who finally fall away were savingly united to Christ. For example, Rich Lusk writes of John Calvin, “In various places, he speaks of apostates who had been formerly ‘reconciled to God’ and ‘adopted’ by Him, joined in ‘sacred marriage’ to Him, recipients of ‘illumination’ and ‘grace,’ and having ‘faith,’ and so on. He says that the eternally reprobate can, for a season share in the special, effectual call of the Holy Spirit. Those who fall away have forsaken their salvation and forgotten that they were cleansed” (Rich Lusk, “New Life and Apostasy: Hebrews 6:4-8 as Test Case ” in J. Steven Wilkins and Duane Garner ed., The Federal Vision (Monroe, LA: Athanasius Press, 2004), 286; emphasis mine). To substantiate his claim that Calvin believed the reprobate shared in the effectual call of the Spirit, Lusk cites Institutes 3:2. After reading the pertinent sections in this chapter (s.9–12), I honestly cannot understand how Lusk sees Calvin arguing that the reprobate were effectually called and truly regenerated. Section 11 is especially damaging to this reading of Calvin. Calvin writes, “For though none are enlightened into faith, and truly feel the efficacy of the Gospel, with the exception of those who are fore-ordained to salvation. . . . Therefore, as God regenerates the elect only for ever by incorruptible seed, as the seed of life once sown in their hearts never perishes, so he effectually seals in them the grace of his adoption, that it may be sure and steadfast. . . . Still it is correctly said, that the reprobate believe God to be propitious to them, inasmuch as they accept the gift of reconciliation, though confusedly and without due discernment; not that they are partakers of the same faith or regeneration with the children of God; but because, under a covering of hypocrisy, they seem to have a principle of faith in common with them.” John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2008), 360-363.
  13. John Barach, “Covenant and Election,” in J. Steven Wilkins and Duane Garner ed., The Federal Vision (Monroe, LA: Athanasius Press, 2004), 36, 37.
  14. Barach, “Covenant and Election,” 22. “These branches were not stuck to the tree with Scotch Tape. These branches were genuinely in Christ. That’s good Pauline language and it’s the language of Jesus.”
  15. A recurring error that pops up when reading FV proponents is the equivocation of covenant and election (See Barach, “Covenant and Election). By ignoring the judgement of charity that Paul frequently uses in his epistles (see also 1 Pet 5:12), the FV speaks of all those in the covenant community as being elect. Barach will make a distinction between present/observable election and eternal election, but this only serves to confuse. Bavinck said it well, “Election only and without qualification states who are elect and will infallibly obtain salvation; the covenant of grace describes the road by which these elect people will attain their destiny. The covenant of grace is the channel by which the stream of election flows toward eternity.” Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3: Sin and Salvation in Christ (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 229.
  16. Wilkins, “Covenant, Baptism and Salvation ,” 58.
  17. Steve Wilkins, “Covenant, Baptism and Salvation,” 58.
  18. John Barach, “Covenant and Election,” 36, 37.

© Stephen Spinnenweber. All Rights Reserved.

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  • Stephen Spinnenweber
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    Stephen has been the pastor of Westminster PCA in Jacksonville, FL  since 2019. Stephen earned his Masters of Divinity from Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and is a General Council member of the Gospel Reformation Network. Together with friends he hosts several podcasts on the Westminster Standards (The Shorter and Larger for Life podcasts) and is also the author of a forthcoming book from Christian Focus Publications on the three uses of the Moral Law, set to be released in 2025. Stephen and his wife, Sarah, are high school sweethearts and have been married since 2013. They are proud parents to four covenant children.

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13 comments

  1. Dear Austin,
    What he (R.S.C.) said.
    Screwtape is still sending trainees to the mission field to deny the blessings of Christ to lost souls and to render useless and hopeless those who are “in” and “of” Christ and who have become disheartened. The battle is crucial, and the crux of living a redeemed life is contending for the faith and making disciples, nurtured and sustained by true, biblical worship. The solas of grace, faith, and Christ will always exclude false teaching and adding to and subtracting from the Word. Some of us are called to a more militant task, and some of us are called to evangelize and disciple, but the tasks are not exclusive, and we can and must do both to the glory of Jesus Christ.

  2. I so appreciate the clarity in this article. A few years ago I had a follower of Doug Wilson write the following to me…He denied holding to Federal Vision…
    I wish they wouldn’t claim to be “Reformed”…it is so misleading!

    “What Christ has done is create a way whereby we are attributed as being blameless before the Law. How? By placing us IN Himself. I find the language of “imputation” both unfortunate and unnecessary. Unfortunate because it connotes reception of something outside of Christ Himself and unnecessary because the glorious biblical language of “in Christ” is richer and fuller than “imputation”. What I mean is that Jesus doesn’t just stand by our side and give us this spotless robe of His law keeping, but rather takes us to Himself and joins with us in such a way that Scripture can simultaneously exult that we are “in Him” and He is “in us”. The language and concept of “imputation” is so cold and stark in comparison!”

    • Your quotation is a classic example of how the followers of this aberrant theology twist Reformed teaching. I suspect that what is meant by being, IN Christ, is being in the covenant community. Both Luther and Calvin were very clear that our righteousness is extra nos. That is a righteousness that is outside of ourselves and credited to us by trusting in Christ, not by being in a covenant community. With these people, being in, and staying in the covenant community by doing your part, is what they mean by being in Christ. You are IN, when you stay in by doing your part! That is exactly a reversion to the teaching the Reformers refuted in the Roman church, which taught, and still teaches, that baptism, personal righteousness, and participation in the church are necessary for salvation. Being IN Christ, by being in the covenant community can never give the warm comfort of assurance of salvation that we have in the assurance of perfect justifying righteousness, outside of ourselves, that is in Christ, and ours by trusting in Him alone,

      • It’s ironic that the individual quoted here is concerned to use “the glorious biblical language,” and seems to ignore or reject the fact that imputation is in fact glorious and biblical (Greek logizomai, most modern translations have “counted as” instead of “imputed,” but it’s the same concept). Romans 4, at least, is replete with glorious imputation language!

  3. Thanks for the great article. I hadn’t seen what they did with making God essentially covenantal, in which we participate through temporal covenants. This seems to blur the distinction between Creator and creature.

    It helped me when I was reading them to understand why they did what they did with the covenant. At least partly, they wanted to explain how Scripture (eg, Pauline epistles) could speak to an entire congregation as elect saints. Their concern was especially for covenant children, whether or not we can call them elect. They really tugged at the heart strings, saying things like “How can we teach our children to pray “Our Father,” if we don’t really know that he is their Father, since we don’t really know if they’re elect?” And they felt that the standard reformed “judgment of charity” (ie, treat all covenant members as if elect, until/ unless they give us reason to doubt that by acting like an unbeliever, since we don’t know the hidden decrees of God) was disatisfying and dishonest. So, claiming to follow Calvin, despite his explicit use of the judgment of charity, they posited two kinds of election, decretal and covenantal. I appreciate your direct interaction with the section of Calvin they appealed to. Too often I found them making historical claims either without any reference at all, or only with a reference to a secondary/ tertiary source. For all of their appeals to Calvin and their interaction with John 15, I never saw them interact with his comments on that passage. If they had, their readers at least would have seen that their view of covenant and union is seriously at odds with Calvin’s. FV is just another attempt to walk by sight and not by faith, to peer into the hidden decrees of God, being unsatisfied with resting in the promises of a faithful God.

  4. I believe Stephen is right to note at the outset that Federal Vision is a cultural phenomenon, not really a theological one. The people flocking to CREC churches are not usually going because they became convinced of the theology of FV, but because they resonated with the culture of strong families, optimism, vibrant singing, and Christian education (and probably because they were originally baptist).

    If this is the case, why are we so focused on combatting the theology of FV? I think we have hit saturation of resources here. Instead, ought we not turn our attention to recovering authentic expressions of Reformed worship, family, and education? While there is certainly a place for responding to the errant theology of FV directly, its popularity is not from theological argument, but culture.

    We have the necessary resources in the Reformed tradition. We do not need to innovate or shun aspects of the tradition in order to combat these modern distortions. We ought to reclaim the third use of the law as its principle use for the Christian, emphasize robust Psalm singing, encourage action and good works out of our gratitude for Christ’s deliverance, recover family worship and discipleship, pursue Christian education, and not discourage layman who wish to take political action.

    • Austin,

      The FV is obviously a theological phenomenon but it is also part of a sociological phenomenon. I say obviously because it makes theological claims. It wants to change Reformed theology.

      Why combat it? Because bad theology, e.g., the corruption of the gospel in the FV, hurts people. It destroys assurance. Accordin to stories being told by the victims in the Sons of Patriarchy pod series, it facilitates and leads to spiritual and even physical abuse.

      On your reasoning we should not be writing articles about how bad Richard Baxter’s doctrine of justification was. After all, he’s dead yet people are still reading Baxter and still being badly affected.

      We can do two things at the same time. We run essays every Saturday about the Psalms, trying to encourage Psalmody. We run hundreds of essays annually. We have space to combat this pernicious error and reclaim the tertius usus legis, which we’ve done regularly since 2007. I just finished a multi-part essay on how Christians can engage politics without becoming a revolutionary theocrat. Take a look at our resources page to get an idea of the scope of what’s published here.

      The odd thing is that people were making this argument from the very moment I began criticizing the FV. I find that very odd indeed.

      • Perhaps I should have been more clear. I am not saying that no attention ought to be given to theological argument or condemnation of FV, nor that it is not a pernicious error with serous consequences. I am noting that the popularity of the CREC (on the lay level) is not being addressed by these (necessary) works.

        Perhaps you are more targeted towards ministers and theologians (entirely appropriate, considering your occupation), but I am concerned we are missing the large swath of congregants who aren’t reading arguments for or against FV; they just like the vibe.

        So yes, we must be addressing theology and practice. Heidelblog has been doing this for a long time. But the CRECrs I argue with aren’t reading Heidelblog (or other lengthy theological outlets). I am wondering out loud about other avenues to more specifically target the cultural pulls of the CREC.

        • Austin,

          I appreciate this. I agree that there is a real sociological attraction to the congregations that also espouse the FV. There is a connection and it’s this: submission and power. One aspect of the FV theology which ties into this aspect of the congregations to which people are being attracted (e.g., the CREC) is the EFS/ERAS etc., i.e., the eternal submission of the Son to the Father. The sociological corollary to this theology is patriarchalism, wherein the female is said to derive her being from the male. All females are subordinate to all males. All this creates an illusion of order and stability in a chaotic postmodern world. Of course the Sons of Patriarchy podcast is blowing up the illusion.

          So, I share your concerns and we’ve been trying to address these issues in various ways. We’ve devoted a fair bit of attention to abuse in the church. We’ve also been calling attention to the problems that Rachel Shubin and even a CREC committee and others have noticed about a certain church in Moscow, ID. See this reference page. Every one of these is aimed at helping laity.

          People are moving to Moscow/the CREC because of the QIRC (the Quest for Illegitimate Religious Certainty). That’s a theological and religious problem. They want the CREC to save them from the “bad people” out there. Again, as Shubin and even the CREC report noted, that hasn’t always worked out.

          It’s very sad that the CRECers aren’t reading the HB. It would help them a lot if they did.

          What makes you think that QIRCers on the road to Moscow, ID, as it were would read the things that might dissuade them from the journey? After all, it’s not as if there are ex-Kirkers speaking out about their experiences. Are CREC folk paying attention to them?

          We would be happy to publish stuff that would help those CRECers who are open to being helped. If you have concrete suggestions, we’re all ears.

          • I think it is always important to sit down and do the difficult reading work. The Bereans did it when they heard Paul the Apostle and investigated whether he was telling the truth. There’s no shortcut. Many of the people attracted to Federal Vision and the CREC have an attitude problem when it comes to authority and submission. The FV capitalises on it but it doesn’t create what is already there. If they manage to leave the CREC they will probably leave for something else equally aberrant if not worse. So even as we engage people we should also pray for the Holy Spirit to introduce new attitudes in those we engage. I think The Heidelblog has done and is doing as much as is possible and with God’s help has been very effective. But at the end of the day, out help comes from God. Always.

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