November 2007 - Protestant Reformed Churches in America

Protestant Reformed Theological Journal
portance of the instituted
church. Emphasizing that Reformed
ecclesiology must be
deeply committed to the traditions
and confessions of the
Reformed faith, Thomas bemoans
the abandonment by Reformed
and Presbyterian
churches of their heritage of
Psalm singing.
114
It is indicative of such rootlessness
that inclusive psalm
singing, for example, has been
abandoned by evangelical
churches and increasingly
minimized in Reformed
churches. It will be a tragic
mistake to consider the adoption
of contemporary worship’s
adoption of popular
culture as value-neutral made
in the interests of evangelism
and communication. One
relatively simple remedy for
the church is to discover its
own tradition in the singing of
the psalms—a liturgical practice
that links the people of
God with three thousand years
of historical practice. Weekly
singing of the psalms provides
a sense of continuity in an age
of instantism and throw-away
consumerism that breeds
scepticism and egocentricity
(p. 348).
One disappointing note, something
so squarely in conflict
with the historical consciousness
that Thomas calls for, is his
chiding of Reformed and Presbyterian
churches for their “refusal
to allow the non-credobaptized
admittance to the
Lord’s Table…” (p. 349).
Kevin Vanhoozer’s contribution
was, in the estimation of
this reviewer, too long and
overly philosophical. But there
are more serious matters. For
one thing, Vanhoozer criticizes
those who view the content of
Scripture as propositional truth,
faulting both Charles Hodge
and Carl F.H. Henry for this inadequate,
as he supposes,
view of Scripture.
… Hodge’s decision to read
the Bible as a book of divinely
revealed facts predisposes
him to focus on the Bible’s
content and to construe this
content as propositional
teaching. Such a focus on revealed
content runs the risk of
neglecting the larger canonical
context and literary form
of the biblical “facts”, perhaps
the inevitable result of biblical
empiricism (p. 137).
… the Bible is not merely an
epistemological foundation—
either a “storehouse of facts”
(Hodge) or a deposit of
propositional revelation
Vol. 41, No. 1