Talk:Canadian and American Reformed Churches

Government and "other Reformed denominations"
I don't like the section on the government. It is not concise. What needs to be said is that they are presbyterian in church government, since that is the term used for their kind of government. The vague notion that "other Reformed denominations" do not do this and the inexact references to "bottom-up" etc. should be deleted. What other Reformed churches do you have in mind? "Bottom-up" has always been the Reformed view. Perhaps some of the liberal denominations (CRCNA) have instituted centralized top-down government? Lufiend 16:44, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I don’t think this statement is really appropriate “the [CanRC] federation holds to a traditional Reformed "bottom-up" polity, as opposed to the "top-down" structure of many other reformed denominations”. First of all who are these many other Reformed denominations?? Secondly in the first part of the sentence we are a "federation" and then we distinguish ourselves from other Reformed "denominations". What are we? A federation or a denomination? Our use of terms should be consistent.

Most importantly however it sounds a like we are tooting our own horn at the expense of countless unnamed “other Reformed denominations”. Isn’t it enough to say that the CanRC holds to we “a traditional Reformed "bottom-up" polity”? Perhaps then we can explain a little about how that works? Right now this section says nothing about how the wider vs. higher assemblies work.

This article should be a source of high-quality information. We shouldn’t assume that only CanRC people will read it. Someone unfamiliar with Reformed church polity would read this and might think the CanRC is a church of mob rule and that for some reason we think that is a good thing. There is an opportunity here to expand and explain about Reformed church polity. Solidiron (talk) 13:35, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes made to Church government section
I have made some of the changes I mentioned above to this section. I think it is better now but not perfect. Perhaps someone else can expand this section to make it better? And experts on Reformed church polity out there???

I have removed the reference to “other Reformed denominations” for the reasons stated above.

I also changed the order of the sentence talking about being anti-hierarchical and anti-independent. The second part of the sentence talked about “defending both the autonomy of the local church and the need to cooperate within a federation”. Therefore I felt the “principles of being anti-hierarchical and anti-independent” should be in the same order. anti-hierarchical goes with defending the autonomy of the local church and anti-independent goes with the need to cooperate within a federation. This sentence is now in a consistant order that clearly shows how each of these principles are helpful.

Solidiron (talk) 13:59, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

covenantal, redemptive-historical preaching and teaching?!?!?!?!?!
I think saying that we have “covenantal, redemptive-historical preaching and teaching” might be a little redundant. Redemptive-historical preaching IS covenantal preaching and although “covenantal” might be rightly be used as a term to describe a form of preaching it is better understood as a framework for Biblical interpretation (as opposed to a dispensationalist framework). Let's keep in mind we are not writing this article for just other Reformed readers. What if someone comes along and thinks “hmmm... what’s this 'covenantal preaching' they are talking about?”

Furthermore “Redemptive-Historical Preaching” has it’s own article on Wikipedia that we can link to. This immediately gives the reader another source of information. I don’t mind keeping both these terms in here (covenantal and “Redemptive-Historical”) but it is redundant and I think “Redemptive-Historical” is better.

Here is the link to the article... not sure why it doesn't work in the body of the CanRC article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redemptive-Historical_Preaching

Response: With all due respect, I would assert that there is a significant difference between "covenantal preaching" and "redemptive historical preaching". Redemptive historical preaching refers to a style of preaching that concerns historical narrative portions of Scripture only, i.e. it applies only to certain genres of Scripture. Covenantal preaching however refers to a covenantal framework employed and applied to all genres of Scripture. Clearly, the terms are quite distinct, and one does not make the other redundant. Both are characteristic of Canadian Reformed preaching, although naturally one only becomes evident when the preacher's text happens to be a historical narrative. Gregorytopov 13:00, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Not sure this is a true statement
While I personaly agree with this I am not sure the following is a true statement.

“Upon public profession of faith, members are understood to subscribe to these confessions as faithfully summarizing the doctrine of the Bible.”

There is a significant contingent that feel this isn’t true. As this isn’t spelled out anywhere I am not sure it should be in here. There is disagreement over this point by a numericly significant portion of CanRC members.

Response: There is a very small minority in the CanRC that has expressed disagreement with the CanRC position on confessional subscription. However, "confessional membership" is still the official position of the CanRC, and this is clearly documented in many decisions of recent Synods, because various synodical committees have been instructed to discuss this with other churches that do not share the CanRC position on this issue. It's true that some (in my estimation: very few) in the CanRC might question the CanRC's position on confessional membership, but there is no debate within the CanRC about whether or not confessional membership is the current CanRC position - if there is any debate (and I personally believe that the above poster is overstating it), the debate is rather about whether confessional membership should continue to be the current CanRC position. The quoted sentence certainly belongs in this article as accurately reflecting the current and official position of the CanRC. Gregorytopov 13:08, 29 May 2007 (UTC)