The Belhar Confession: The Wrong Time, The Wrong Place, The Wrong Confession

As I have began to read and study the Belhar Confession, its history and the suggested documents for studying it, I have decided to stop and apply some of Arthur Cochrane’s material from his book The Churches Confession Under Hitler, as well as my own thoughts, to the Confession.

First I want to list the initial problems I have with the Belhar Confession and its possible inclusion in the Presbyterian Church (USA) Book of Confessions.

1.The text the Church has been given to study is an inclusive translation of the original one. It is slightly altered. In some sense, in the very first part, the Word and Spirit are cut free from God; likewise the Church has lost its owner.

2.The Belhar Confession only speaks to a symptom of a deeper problem, therefore, it is more relevant for a certain time and place, rather than meeting the needs of the Church Universal.

3.Likewise the Confession fails to do the first thing a Confession must do, that is, confess Jesus Christ anew for the Church. It is because of this that it only speaks to a symptom.

4.Following this failure to confess Jesus Christ anew this Confession begins a small fissure that will undoubtedly widen into such a wide canyon that other Confessions may fall into the chasm. (I will of course explain my metaphors.)

5.Rather then speaking to the fomenting heresies that are gathering strength in the Presbyterian Church USA as well as the antinomianism that is plaguing this and other denominations, this Confession has the power to confuse all the issues.

1. The first problem is quite fixable and is not a problem in some of the translation. The original #1 reads, “We believe in the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who gathers, protects and cares for his Church by his Word and his Spirit, as He has done since the beginning of the world and will do to the end.”

The new translation reads, “We believe in the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who gathers, protects and cares for the Church through Word and Spirit. This, God has done since the beginning of the world and will do to the end.” This simply leads to a rather ambiguous ‘Word’ and ‘Spirit,’ and fails to note that God is the owner of his Church. Probably the worst problem here is the setting of a precedent for changing language in an already existing official document (official to the Churches of South Africa).

2-3. The second problem, the Confession’s concerns with a symptom, must be joined with the third problem its failure to Confess Jesus Christ as Lord. That is, the disunity in the South African Church caused by a forced separation of ethnic groups had as its basic foundation the failure of the Church to confess Jesus Christ as Lord. Failure to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord always causes, in one way or another, disunity.

Cochrane in his chapter on the nature of a Confession, as I have elsewhere pointed out, writes:

"The Barmen Declaration teaches first and foremost that a Confession of Faith is a written document drawn up by the Church which confesses Jesus Christ. While the Church confesses certain doctrines and dogmas and supplies answers to specific questions, it does so only in order to bear witness to Christ. It confesses a living Person who is the Lord and thus calls for a personal relationship of trust and obedience to him—not to the Confession as such or to the doctrines contained in it.”

While the Belhar Confession does refer to Jesus Christ as Lord in several places, those are simply formal statements. The Church is not called to a personal relationship of trust and obedience which then would have included unity among believers. The broken unity of that Church at that particular time was failure to be obedient to Jesus Christ as the only Lord of the Church. Lack of adherence to the unique and only Lordship of Jesus Christ is always the foundational cause of disunity. The Church must be called back to the unique Lordship of Jesus Christ.

4. The fourth problem in the Belhar Confession is its relationship to "liberation theology." While it does not first, in a proper manner, call the Church back to its Lord, the Confession rather in a very small and subtle way connects a different group to the Lord in a way it has not connected the Church to the Lord. Under number 4 the author of the Belhar Confession writes:

“We believe … that God, in a world full of injustice and enmity, is in a special way the Lord of the destitute, the poor and the wronged … that God calls the church to follow him in this; …” (Emphasis mine)

That sounds right but it isn’t. The Lord cares for the poor, the destitute, the wronged, but the Bible does not say he is their Lord in a special way. God calls his people to care for the destitute, the poor and the wronged, not because he is Lord of the poor in a special way but because he is Lord of the Church in a special way!

Some of the poor will be lost because they reject the Lord of the Church. But still the Church is called to love and care for them because Jesus Christ is Lord of the Church.

Into this fracture, caused by naming another relationship between God and the world other than that which exists between Jesus Christ and the Church, falls all that is important concerning God’s unique revelation in Jesus Christ.

5. Because the Belhar Confession creates with this one subtle statement another relationship between God and the world, that is a relationship because of need, not because of God’s act of redemption in Jesus’ life death and resurrection it opens the door to receiving heresy and antinomianism into the life of the Church.

If God has a special relationship with a particular oppressed group because they are oppressed rather than because he has come to them with his transforming life given in Jesus Christ not only are their needs not addressed, their sin is unaddressed. The door is open to receive those who come un-believing and un-repentant into God’s Church.

Cochrane in his 7th point on the nature of a Confession, states “it [the Confession] occurs when the Church is convinced that its faith and unity are ‘grievously imperiled’ by a heresy that has ripened and come to a head,” yet, the Belhar Confession simply gathers up the ripening heresies of today and shatters them all over the Church. (Cochrane’s italics)

The Belhar Confession will call the Presbyterian Church USA in the wrong direction. It is not the right time, the right place or the right Confession. The Declaration of Barmen, in fact, already, in a much more universal and careful way meets the need the Presbyterian Church USA has at this time. It calls the Church to the one Lordship of Jesus Christ.