The doctrine of the spirituality of the church holds that God has ordained distinct spheres in the Christian life. The family is one sphere of authority and administration. Secular life, i.e., that life that is common to believers and non-believers alike, is another, and the church, the principal manifestation of the kingdom of God on the earth is another. According to D. G. Hart, the “Old School [Presbyterian] view, sometimes called ‘the Spirituality of the Church’, asserted the uniqueness of the church and her responsibilities when compared to other institutions, whether the state or the family.”¹ The Old School “represented an older strain of Reformed thought, clearly stated in chapter thirty-one of the Westminster Confession, that put significant limits on church power.”² Westminster Confession 31.4 says,

Synods and councils are to handle, or conclude nothing, but that which is ecclesiastical: and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth, unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary; or, by way of advice, for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate.

The spirituality of the church means that the church as an institution, as the visible body of Christ has specific mission and mandate: to preach the law the gospel, the administer the sacraments, and to administer discipline. Church history teaches us that the church has far too often had a difficult time even fulfilling these mandates.

• T. David Gordon, Thoughts On Overture 12
• Trueman: Upholding The Spirituality Of The Church Is Not Pietism
• Charles Hodge Taught The Spirituality Of The Church
• Machen On The Responsibility And Spirituality Of The Institutional Church
• R. Scott Clark, Of Semicolons And The Spirituality Of The Church
• Simon Jooste, How The Spirituality Of The Church Can Address The Legacy Of Apartheid
• R. Scott Clark, “Cases Extraordinary,” The Spirituality Of The Church, And The Trans Crisis
• Kevin DeYoung, “Two Cheers For the Spirituality of the Church”
• R. Scott Clark, Should The Visible Church, As An Institution, Form And Express An Opinion On Political Violence?
• D. G. Hart, “Why The PCA Needs the Spirituality of the Church”
• Simon Jooste, “Apartheid” Of Church And State
• Harrison Perkins, Review: Estelle, The Primary Mission Of The Church (Mentor, 2022)
• R. Scott Clark, Cultural Transformation Is Not The Article Of The Standing Or Falling Of The Church (But Justification Is)
• R. Scott Clark, Let The Church Be The Church
• Video: Alan Strange and Kevin DeYoung on the Spirituality of the Church
• Video: Presbycast with T. David Gordon the Spirituality of the Church
• Resources On The Twofold Kingdom
• Lewis, Charles Irving. An Essay toward the Understanding of Thornwell’s Doctrine of the Spirituality of the Church, 1945.
• Spence, Thos H., “Southern Presbyterian Church and the Doctrine of the Spirituality of the Church.” Dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 1929.
• Strange, Alan D. The Doctrine of the Spirituality of the Church in the Ecclesiology of Charles Hodge. Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P & R Publishing, 2017.
• Strange, Alan D. Empowered Witness : Politics, Culture, and the Spiritual Mission of the Church. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2024.
• Thompson, Ernest Trice. The Spirituality of the Church; a Distinctive Doctrine of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. Richmond: John Knox Press, 1961.

NOTES

1. Darryl G. Hart, “J. Gresham Machen: Confessionalism and the History of American Presbyterianism,” in The Practical Calvinist: An Introduction to the Presbyterian and Reformed Heritage, ed. Peter A. Lillback (Fearn, Ross-shire, UK: Christian Focus Publications, 2002), 362.

2. Hart, ibid., 363.

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